Blast from the Past
by Namls
Summary: A little blast from the past causes problems for Corday... Chapter 4 is up, but it's not very long... The rating is for some swearing...
1. In the Loop

  
  
**Author's note**: This is my first attempt at something like this, and it's far from finished yet... :) I started writing it without having a clue where I would take it, then I was listening to the soundtrack of my favorite musical and got all these funny ideas into my head... But I don't know if I'm that good a writer, so I figured I'd post this first and see what kind of reactions I got before I start writing a longer story. This bit doesn't really lead anywhere at all, and it doesn't have an end worth anything, but I'll get working on the rest soon enough. Also please note that I know **nothing** about medicine or hospitals, so there might be around a zillion errors, but hopefully you can ignore them...  
**What you need to know**: This takes place in what would probably be mid-season 10. Weaver's whole unfortunate mess with the alderman has been found out and as a result she lost her job, and Romano is back at his old job. The rest you'll probably figure out along the way...  
**Disclaimer**: You know the drill... Hardly anything belongs to me... :)  
~*~   
  
Elizabeth buried her head under her pillow and growled. It was 6 in the morning, and she hadn't gotten more than four hours of sleep yet. A few more wouldn't hurt, but it was impossible to sleep with all the noise coming from the bathroom. Who would have guessed that the ever grumpy Dr Romano liked to sing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in the shower?  
  
She growled again and glanced at the time. She didn't even know what he was doing up at this hour. His shift didn't start until eight, he could easily have spent another half-hour in bed. It was not like he had lots of hair to blow-dry after he got out of the shower.  
Finally the water stopped running in the next room, and Elizabeth waited for the singing to turn into humming and then stop. However, the singer seemed to have no plans on cutting it out today, and Elizabeth growled yet again. She made a mental note to get earplugs so she could sleep through the mornings.  
  
He was still singing to himself when he got back into the bedroom, although now he had changed tunes from "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" to "The Boxer", which didn't make her much happier.  
  
"Simon and Garfunkel were losers" she growled from underneath her pillow. He answered with a line of "lalala"s which made her wish he had been born without vocal chords. She growled yet again and grabbed his pillow to put over her head as well. But somehow his singing managed to get through two layers of pillows and she looked up at him with murder in her eyes.  
  
"The pillows work better under your head" he informed her, taking a short break from his singing. "Or are you trying a new sleeping style?"  
  
"Stop singing!" she growled, but to no avail. He kept singing "The Boxer" and paid no attention to her anger. She growled yet again and pondered throwing one of the pillows at him.  
  
"Is that a world record in growling, Lizzie?" he asked and yanked one of the pillows away from her. "Stop maltreating the pillows."  
  
"Stop maltreating my ears!" she growled back. "I'm trying to sleep."  
  
"What's the point, your shift starts in less than five hours."  
  
"Right, which means I've got at least another **three** hours of sleep! Now quit singing or I will be forced to shut you up!"  
  
"Is that a threat or a promise?" he asked. "Probably a threat, or you wouldn't have that look on your face…"  
  
"It's bad enough that I have to be woken up every morning by those damn sleeping lions while you shower, why must you continue singing once you're done showering?"  
  
"To annoy you is my purpose in life" he claimed and rumbled through a heap of clothes on a chair, looking for a tie. "Can't I be in a good mood for once?"  
  
"Not at six in the morning" Elizabeth groaned.  
  
"It's past six."  
  
"Yeah, six-o-twelve" she said with a glance at the alarm clock. "Which is way too soon. I haven't had a sleep-in for two months and you **have** to keep me up…"  
  
"Oh quit moaning, it's Friday, you've got two days to catch up on your sleep incoming…"  
  
"Only if you're not working, otherwise I'll be woken up at dawn anyway. I find it really unfair that the bloody lion gets to sleep, but I don't!"  
  
"So, do you want eggs for breakfast?" he said as if she'd just told him she was wide awake and in a splendid mood.  
  
"Yeah, why not…" she said, giving in with a sigh. "I'm not going to be able to go back to sleep anytime soon anyway. Eggs would be nice."  
  
"You'll have to make them yourself" he casually informed her and left the bedroom. She sighed and felt tempted to throw the eggs at him. She closed her eyes and tried her best to go to sleep again, but her efforts were thwarted when a large dog landed by her feet.  
  
"Gretle!" Elizabeth growled. "Get **off** the bed! Ugh!"  
  
She grabbed the pillows again and pressed them against her ears, trying to shut out the sounds of the dog's sniffing and slobbering. She hated that dog. It was large, had too much unruly fur and it smelled. Not to mention the fact that it hated Elizabeth as much as she hated her. Elizabeth took a glance at the mutt and felt ready to burst with anger. There was no use trying to stay in bed, she was way too annoyed to be able to go back to sleep.  
  
She forced herself to get out of bed and then forced the dog out of the bedroom. She had read that larger dogs usually don't live for more than ten or twelve years, and she truly hoped that would be the case with Gretle, who was nine years old. She couldn't wait to be rid of that stupid mutt. Dogs should be smaller and a lot less hairy, and they should preferably like her too.  
  
She got dressed and went downstairs to fry her eggs and cast an annoyed glance at the source of the singing that was still going on. By now both "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and "The Boxer" had been dealt with, and "Bright Eyes" was getting a go. The song was too depressing for her at this hour and she gave him an annoyed nudge.  
  
"First of all, stop that singing already! Second of all, keep that mutt of yours **away** from the bedroom!"  
  
"That dog, I refuse to use the word 'mutt', probably felt it was time for you to get out of bed. Fry me some eggs while you're at it!"  
  
He went back to singing, and she angrily grabbed his plate and moved the fried eggs over to it.  
  
"I'll give you these in one condition."  
  
"I don't negotiate."  
  
"Stop singing or eat your eggs raw."  
  
He stood up, took the plate from her, placed a kiss on her cheek and teasingly started to sing "The Sound of Silence". Elizabeth felt like a muzzle would be on its place, or perhaps a mute button.  
  
"Care to tell me why you're in such good spirits?" she finally said, realising she would never get him to stop singing unless she made him talk instead.  
  
"Care to tell me why you have forgotten it?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.  
  
"Forgotten what?" Then it struck her. "Oh… Right… That's right! You're back in surgery today, aren't you?"  
  
"Congratulations, you've won a toaster, what colour do you want?"  
  
"I'm happy for you Robert" she said and began frying some eggs for herself. "You're sure you're ready?" He gave her a look. "Well I had to ask… It's been over a year and a half…"  
  
"And I have made an amazing amount of progress in the past six months" he reminded her. "It's not like I'm going in there to single-handedly take that tumour out, put it in an envelope and mail it to the president. Although I admit that would be fun."  
  
"Robert…" she said, rolling her eyes.  
  
"You'll be there, that jerk Edson will be there, not to mention my new little slave."  
  
"Right…" she said and sipped her first cup of coffee for the day. "That new med student of yours…"  
  
"We'll be like one happy family" he said sarcastically. "This is going to be a nice kick in the ass for all those who claimed my bad luck year was all karma."  
  
"I'm glad you're taking it so maturely."  
  
"Maturity is for residents. Being Chief of Staff once again, I don't need it."  
  
"Don't be so sure…" she remarked, but couldn't help but smiling at what she recognised as only feigned seriousness. She finished her cup of coffee and yawned. The coffee wasn't doing much good, she was still ready to fall asleep on the spot.  
  
Robert rose from his chair, took the plate she held in her hands and placed another kiss on her cheek.  
  
"Go upstairs and get some more sleep. I'll see you in a couple of hours."  
  
She smiled and followed his orders. It wasn't until she was back in bed that she realised that he had taken her second fried eggs as well as the first.  
~*~   
"You call that scrubbing? Put some energy into it, it's not going to kill you! It might kill the patient though if you scrub like a sissy!"  
  
Elizabeth rolled her eyes at the scene taking place in the scrubbing room as she entered it. Robert was in top shape and was giving his new med student his most persistent tutoring. The poor student scrubbed for king and country, but didn't get much more than a "that'll do" acknowledgement from the teacher.  
  
Elizabeth was surprised to see that the new med student was female, and looking quite young. She couldn't really tell whether or not she was pretty, since the scrubs and the hat didn't do anybody's looks any favours, but the sight of her wasn't very pleasing either way. She couldn't help but wonder why Robert had chosen to be in charge of her training himself.  
  
At the moment, it didn't seem as if he could figure it out either. He seemed mostly annoyed with having to drill a newcomer in the art of scrubbing, and he barked our directions in a manner that would make a drill sergeant green with envy. When he deemed the student well-enough scrubbed he told her to go inside the OR and wait.  
  
"And **don**'**t** touch anything on your way in! I didn't spend the past thirty minutes helping you scrub to have you open the doors with your hands!"  
  
The girl rolled her eyes and went inside the OR without touching anything. Elizabeth wondered how long it would be before he'd broken the student into tears and made her swear off medicine for good.  
  
"Well you sure gave her a smooth introduction" she remarked dryly, scrubbing away.  
  
"If you can't take the heat, get your ass out of the kitchen."  
  
"I'm a bit curious as to why you decided to take her on. You don't exactly seem like you're intending to give her a nice, warm welcome."  
  
"Setting a good example, Lizzie."  
  
"Of what, dictatorship?"  
  
He ignored her comment and yelled at a nearby nurse to take over the scrubbing duty from his left hand which he preferred to save for surgery.  
  
"The helium heads which you call co-workers in the ER, have gotten it into their heads that it's a waste of time to take on med students" he informed her as the rather unwilling nurse took over the scrubbing job. "That snob one, Carter, claimed he didn't have the time to take on a med student, and everybody else got inspired by that. The idiots don't realise that if nobody trains the newbies we will be all out of colleagues in a decade or so."  
  
"Naturally."  
  
"So from now on everybody's **required** to take on med students. No more tossing them around to whoever's got the time down there, you get your student and you stick with him. I'll be finding you some poor fellow to pass your wisdom to shortly, Lizzie."  
"I think I know a volunteer" Elizabeth mumbled to herself as the phone rang and the nurse went to answer, receiving a few curses from Robert.  
  
Elizabeth had received a fan down at the ER, a med student by the name of Josh Hailey who had been following her around like a puppy dog whenever he'd gotten the chance. She had tried to tell him that she wasn't interested, but so far he hadn't seemed to realise what that meant. He kept paging her to get her opinion and supervision, even though she constantly told him to get one of the attendings down at the ER. Not to mention the constant comments about how ravishing he thought she was. She had told him she wasn't interested, but if he wanted to keep complimenting her she didn't mind. And part of her found it quite fun to have someone give her that much attention.  
  
"Dr. Corday, there's a Josh Hailey on the phone for you" the nurse reported.  
  
"Speak of the devil" Elizabeth said with a sigh.  
  
"What does he want?" Robert asked.  
  
"He didn't say."  
  
"And you suddenly lost all questionnaires in your language? Ask him. If it's not urgent, tell him to dial a 976 number instead."  
The nurse sighed and went back to the med student on the phone. Robert glanced over at Elizabeth.  
  
"You were saying?"  
  
"Saying what?"  
  
"Something about a med student?"  
  
"Oh that. You just told him to go dial 976."  
  
"The twit on the phone? Why the hell is he calling you, did you steal his course literature?"  
  
"He's got a crush on me" Elizabeth said with a sigh.  
  
"Really? See that's what I love about you Lizzie, you always keep me in the loop."  
  
"It's no big deal, he's just being annoyingly persistent."  
  
"No big deal, I'll assign him to Kovac."  
  
"Luka is leaving next week."  
  
"And if we're lucky he'll take your little boy toy with him to Croatia."  
  
"I doubt it."  
  
"Dr. Corday, he says he needs to talk to you" the nurse said.  
  
"We know, you told us" Robert coldly informed her. "Got any **new **information?"  
  
"He says it's about some patient with a possible abdominal bleed."  
  
"Possible abdominal bleed?" Robert echoed. "Tell him to get Anspaugh. And a clue, while he's at it."  
  
"He says he wants Dr. Corday."  
  
"Told you he was persistent" Elizabeth said.  
  
"Well guess what, we don't get to pick our surgeons" Robert sarcastically informed the nurse. "Give me the phone! And then get back to scrubbing, we don't have all day!"  
  
The nurse sighed and held the phone up for him, probably wishing she had pursued a career as a checkout girl instead.  
  
"He keeps asking me to supervise everything he does…" Elizabeth explained. "Like I said, he's got some sort of crush on me."  
  
"Yo, rookie!" Robert barked into the phone. "Leave my woman alone."  
  
"How chivalric" Elizabeth remarked as the nurse hung up the phone and went back to scrubbing.  
  
"Chivalry is one of my best qualities" he sarcastically replied.  
~*~   
"Looks like Edison decided to finally join us" Elizabeth remarked, spotting him scrubbing in through the window.  
  
"If you're ever this late, I'll fail you" Robert informed the med student.  
  
She nodded and looked slightly disgusted as Elizabeth began working on removing the tumour.  
  
"Poor girl" she remarked.  
  
"Not at all, her cancer is treatable" Elizabeth said. "It's those who can't have their tumours removed you should feel sorry for."  
  
"I feel sorry for anyone with cancer."  
  
"How big of you" Robert dryly said.  
  
"I have a question" the student said.  
  
"Ask it."  
  
"Why do I need to take a class in safety on the roof?" she asked. "How much danger could you get in while meeting patients up there?"  
  
"Why don't you fill her in, Robert?" Elizabeth suggested, being rewarded by a look which was far from flattering.  
  
"Helicopters aren't little fuzzy-wuzzy teddy bears" Robert said grumpily.  
  
"Yeah, and?"  
  
"And if you're not careful you'll get maimed."  
  
"We had a case like that not two years ago" Elizabeth filled in.  
  
"Seriously?" The student wrinkled her nose and seemed sceptic. "Somebody got maimed?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
The student scoffed.  
  
"Well I guess if the head is stupid the body suffers. Doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that you shouldn't go too close to the blades."  
  
Elizabeth looked up from the work at hand and tried to figure out what Robert was thinking at that comment. He didn't say anything, but she had a feeling his med student was on some very thin ice. Before she could open her mouth and say something else stupid, Edson made his way into the OR with a smug smile on his face.  
  
"Well, well, well…" he said. "If it isn't the happy twosome." He looked at the med student and smiled a bit wider. "My, my, and the baby makes three."  
  
"And now that you're here we can be the unhappy foursome" Robert replied. "Give me a damn good excuse why you're so late, then stand in the corner and pretend to be involved."  
  
"I don't intend on standing in the corner" Edson said. "I'm here to do surgery."  
  
"No, you were **supposed** to be here forty-five minutes ago to do surgery. Now you're to waste your time like you've waster ours."  
  
Robert's student looked from one doctor to the other, seemingly unsure of which foot to stand on. She hadn't expected her first day in the OR to be anything like this, and she definitely hadn't expected such an amount of arrogance in the doctors.  
  
"So who's the new kid on the block?" Edson asked, taking a stroll around the table to overlook things.  
  
"Sophia Hamilton" she told him.  
  
"And this is Dr. Edson, who apparently needs to call the Talking Clock to set his wrist watch straight" Robert finished the introduction. "Now less yapping, more operating."  
  
Elizabeth had gone back to removing the tumour, assisted by Robert and observed by Edson and Sophia Hamilton. She was glad Edson had finally showed up, but she didn't show it. She knew Robert would get mad if she let on how nervous she was being assisted by only him and a med student with no experience of the OR. If something went wrong she'd have to rely on herself and his still not fully functioning arms. She knew his left arm was as good as it would ever get, but it wasn't good enough for him to perform surgery on his own. He could assist, but that was it, and she knew how frustrated he was over this. He should be thankful to be back in the OR at all, but she knew him, he was never happy until he had it all. He would never be satisfied with merely assisting other surgeons, especially not since he knew he was a better surgeon than all of them prior to his accident.  
  
Now that Edson was here she tried to put her worries out of her head and focus on the operation. They were most likely going to be in here for some while yet. Robert kept barking out questions to Hamilton who was desperately trying to keep up, but stood little chance when he was in this mood. Elizabeth had a strong feeling she had made an enemy in him already.   
~*~   
"Just what I've always wanted" Robert grunted and buried his head under his pillow. "A woman with a child."  
  
Elizabeth ignored him and got out of bed with a sigh. It was only four in the morning, what on earth could Ella want? She shivered and told herself for the millionth time to buy another robe so she could keep one at Robert's place. Now she had to settle for his, which was full of dog hair and smelled like dog as well. She stumbled out into the hallway and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. This was supposed to be her sleep-in morning, but naturally Ella had to wake up much sooner than regularly and yell for her mother.  
  
She made her way through the dark hallway to the guest room which had more or less turned into Ella's room over the past months, and turned the lights on. She squinted in the sudden bright light and nearly tripped over a large teddy bear which had been misplaced on the floor.  
  
"Ella what is it?" she asked and yawned.  
  
Ella was sitting up in her bed with an eagle plushie in one hand and the pacifier which she used occasionally in the other. At the foot of the bed Gretle kept careful guard.  
  
"My night light" Ella complained. "I woke up, and my night light was out."  
  
Elizabeth took a glance at the windowsill lamp disguising itself as a night light for Ella and decided for the fifteenth time that she needed to get something more on the lines of Donald Duck for the child. Maybe she should take her day off to go shopping?  
  
"That's not a problem" she said, hoping it would be true. "I'll find you another light bulb."  
  
"I woke up, and it was black!"  
  
"Well don't worry honey, I'll get you another lamp" Elizabeth promised, and stumbled back out into the dark hallway.  
  
This proved out to be far more difficult than she had expected. She didn't have a clue where Robert kept his light bulbs, and she didn't like the idea of looking through all his cabinets and drawers. After searching for thirty minutes she went back to the bedroom and quietly borrowed the lamp from the windowsill. She went back to Ella's room and found her daughter to be asleep again. Elizabeth wondered how anyone could fall asleep with all these bright lights on, completely forgetting that she had done it herself a hundred times when she was on call. She put the lamp from Robert's bedroom on the windowsill, plugged it in and lit it. She leaned in to give Ella a kiss on the cheek and tuck her in, causing Gretle to growl protectively.  
  
"Oh give it a rest," she said to the mutt, "she's my daughter, I've got more right to be with her than you do. Go guard a flower pot." She turned the lights off before she left, leaving only the temporary nigh light shining, and went back to the bedroom. A glance at the alarm clock told her it was close to five in the morning. Robert was fast asleep, strangely enough resting on his injured arm. She considered shaking him awake to make him aware that he would have a bad arm day if he didn't roll off the poor thing, but then she got a better idea. She crawled into bed and proceeded to wake him up in a different way.  
  
"What time is it?" he mumbled, and then realised he was resting on his left arm. "Damn it…" He rolled over on his other side and met Elizabeth's lips in the process. "It must be really late if you're not only awake, but smiling" he decided, lazily opening his left eye. "Why is it still so dark?"  
  
"Because it's not five a.m. yet" Elizabeth told him.  
  
"Whatever happened to sleeping in?"  
  
"When you have a child there are never any guarantees" she said. "And the same thing goes for when you have a boyfriend who signs in the shower."  
  
"Boyfriend? The whole world must have gone crazy" he sleepily said, took another glance at the clock and closed his eyes again. "Wake me up again in a couple of hours. Then I can have a good start to my day before I go to work."  
  
This caught Elizabeth's attention. She forgot what she had been doing two seconds ago and gave him a puzzled look.  
  
"You're going to work?"  
  
"It's a nasty habit of mine. I'll try to quit."  
  
"But I thought you didn't work any shifts on Saturdays."  
  
"Administrative junk" he mumbled, going back to sleep.  
  
"See, that's what I love about you, Robert…" Elizabeth sighed. "You always keep me in the loop."  
  
"Well our friend Kerry Weaver left such a nice little mess behind, I've got to do some paper work…"  
  
"Oh you're such a bore!" she groaned and rolled over on her back. He opened his eyes to give her a confused look, then closed them again to get some more sleep. She cast a glance at him and rolled her eyes. He really knew how to spoil the fun. Her amorous mood was gone at the moment and had been replaced by a slightly irritated one, although she couldn't quite figure out why. She knew he had a lot of catching up to do at work since he had been reappointed Chief of Staff, it shouldn't come as a surprise to her that he had to work on a Saturday.  
  
He moved a little closer to her and put his arm across her belly, and then seemed to go back to sleep instantly. She absent-mindedly ran her index finger along the scar on his arm where it had been severed twenty months earlier and waited for sleep to come. She knew she wouldn't have to wait very long, she never experienced any problems falling asleep in this bed. It was by far the most comfortable bed she had ever slept in, and by now she had learned never to sleep at his place if she had an early day the next morning. She could never bring herself to get out of the bed until it was far too late, and at more than one occasion Robert had had to literally drag her out of bed with his good arm.  
  
Just as she had suspected she fell back asleep shortly, and slept for two hours before she was woken up again. This time it was Gretle's barking that woke her up, and she hated the dog more than ever. She opened her eyes and saw that Robert was getting up, and shushing the dog as he searched for his robe.  
  
"Damn it…" he mumbled to himself. "Gretle, go find my robe!"  
  
Elizabeth suddenly realised she was still wearing his robe, something which hadn't occurred to her when she'd gotten into bed again earlier.  
  
"You'll have to fight me for it" she informed him with a smile on her face. His head turned, surprised to hear her voice. "I thought you were asleep" he said.  
  
"Try to teach your dog not to bark" she replied. "Looking for your robe?"  
  
"Yeah, damn it I was so sure I put it here…" he said, glancing over at the empty peg on the wall where his robe had hung the last time he saw it.  
  
"You did" she told him. "But now you'll have to fight for it if you want it back."  
  
He gave her a confused look and then realised she was wearing the robe. He sat down on the bed and then rolled over on top of her. "Give me it" he demanded.  
  
"Is this what you call fighting?" she asked, knowing he wouldn't be able to hold that position and pin her down for much longer or his arm would protest.  
  
"Save it for tonight Liz, I've gotta get to work."  
  
"Ooohh, don't go" she complained. "Nobody's gonna check when you get to work and when you leave, anyway… and it's only seven o'clock…" He rolled off her, resting on his good arm, and wondered how he could get the robe back without losing the battle in the process. As much fun as it sounded, he wanted to get to work early and leave early. He hated paper work, the Chief of Staff position was something he wanted mainly because of the prestige it brought. Not to mention he got to boss around pretty much everyone he wanted, and that alone was worth the boring paper work.  
  
"You do realise that your daughter is going to wake up within the next thirty minutes and probably come strolling in here" he said, trying plan A. "Now the last thing we need is to scar that poor girl for life with some inappropriate images!"  
  
"Thirty minutes, aren't you giving yourself a little too much credit?" she teased.  
  
"Just for that I'll sing Italian opera as loud as I can the following ten mornings" he said. "And trust me Lizzie, my voice does not cover opera!"  
  
"Well I'm not going to give you the robe just like that, so either go without it or…"  
  
"Blackmail?" he said with a raised eyebrow.  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"Well in that case I'll be force to tell everyone that you're sleeping with the boss… Now that's not gonna do much for your friendly work environment."  
  
"That's a price I'm willing to pay."  
  
"Come on Lizzie, not now" he groaned. "Look, the sooner I get to work, the better, I've got some damn meeting this afternoon that I've gotta prepare for. One of your ER pals wants a raise. I say she should **earn** it… Why are you even wearing my robe?"  
  
"Long story" she said. "Now do you want it or not?"  
  
"Where's my lamp?" he asked, suddenly noticing the absence of his windowsill lamp.  
  
Elizabeth playfully smacked him on the head.  
  
"What do I have to do to get your attention, really?" she asked.  
  
"Transform yourself into the pile of paper work waiting for me on my desk" Robert suggested. "Quit playing around, give me the damn robe."  
  
"Consider this payback for all the mornings you've woken me up singing 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'."  
  
Robert sighed and for a second pondered letting her keep the robe and go through his morning rituals without it, but he hated not having his robe in the morning. The air in the house was far too chilly compared to the warmth under the covers, and he was already starting to freeze. Lizzie would have to surrender the robe, and without getting what she wanted in return.  
  
Elizabeth won the battle.  
~*~   
Elizabeth calmly listened as a long line of less than flattering words came out of Robert's mouth as he rushed around trying to get dressed, drink coffee and find his brief case, all at the same time. She was used to his bad morning temper. She was used to his bad around the clock temper. As long as Ella didn't have to hear any bad words come out of his mouth it didn't bother her anymore, and Ella thought he was hilarious. Robert didn't quite see it like that.  
  
"Lizzie, have you seen my brief case?" he angrily asked as he passed by the kitchen table for the fifteenth time that minute. "I put it here last night, and now it's not here anymore. How many times do I have to tell you, if you feel the need to clean, clean **around** my stuff! Don't move everything around so that not even Sherlock Holmes could find it!" Ella giggled at the scene. "And don't you start, this is **not** funny. Crap Lizzie, did you do with this like you did with my robe?"  
  
"You mean did I sleep in your brief case? That would be a no."  
  
"One of these days we have to have your kleptomaniac tendency checked out" he barked. "This way I'll be at the hospital forever…"  
  
He ran away to go look in his study, and Ella continued to giggle. Elizabeth had thought Robert would scare Ella with his temper, but she seemed to find him amusing when he was angry. Elizabeth admired her daughter for that, it had taken her years to learn not to fear for her life when he was mad. But Ella had never shown any signs of being afraid of him, but then again his anger had never been aimed at her. Most of the time he got along very well with the three-year-old, which was a great relief. He could just as easily have been incredibly stiff around the child, and unable to bond with her. But when it came to children and animals he seemed to have a lot more social skills than with rest of the earthly population.  
  
Robert came back to the kitchen, now with his brief case in hand, and stormed past Elizabeth and Ella.  
  
"See you later" he roared and then left, slamming the door shut behind him.  
  
"How charming…" Elizabeth muttered to herself, wondering if she'd develop tinnitus sooner or later from all his barking and yelling.  
  
She sipped her coffee slowly as Ella ate her porridge in silence, and her mind wandered. She thought of the man who had fathered her child, and the man who had now taken over the fatherly role, at least for the time being. The two were as different as night and day, Mark Greene was a warm, social person and Robert Romano was about as warm and friendly as a freezer. But deep down they were very much like one another, something which they'd probably both hate to hear. The great difference between the two was that Mark didn't hide how he felt, or try to conceal his warmer side, while Robert had a shell around him which might as well be made out of concrete. It took a whole lot of work to get through that shell, and in the end you could spend your life working on getting through it, and still fail if Robert wanted you to fail. But he had a warm and caring side, even though he only showed it when he felt like it. Elizabeth had learned to ignore the harsh, cynical side he showed 95% of the time, since she knew he was a good person inside. But she had often secretly wondered what had made him so cold in the first place.  
~*~   
"Have people stopped coming down for surgical consults?" Jing-Mei Chen angrily asked no one and everyone as she made her way from trauma 1 to trauma 2. Not that surgical consults were needed at the moment, some surgeon she didn't recognise had been down thirty minutes ago. What Jing-Mei wanted at the moment was a miracle from the lord above.  
  
"Anybody gotten anything out of the mother yet?" John Carter asked, glancing through a chart and trying his best to hide how mentally exhausted he was. This case had quickly made its way into his personal Bad Case Hall of Fame.  
  
"Lewis is talking to her right now" Chen informed him, and made her way back to trauma 1 again. "How's he doing?"  
  
"He's stabile…" Abby Lockhart informed her. "But I'm not sure for how long he's gonna stay that way. How's she doing?"  
  
"Pretty much the same" Chen told her. She glanced out in the hallway and couldn't help but sigh. As if the situation wasn't bad enough as it was, here came Dr. Romano to make everybody's spirits so much lower.  
  
"You there!" Robert barked as he entered trauma 1. "Where's Dr. Lewis?"  
  
"She's with a patient's mother. Two patients' mother, actually."  
  
"Oh how clever of her to kill two birds in one stone" Robert snapped, not caring the least bit that the simile he'd used wasn't exactly appropriate at the moment. "Why the hell didn't she show up for our meeting? She's the one who asked for it in the first place, she can kiss that raise goodbye."  
  
"She got caught up in this case" Chen tried to defend Susan Lewis.  
  
"And with the five other doctors in the two trauma rooms I'm sure she wasn't expendable" he snapped back.  
  
Abby rolled her eyes and silently congratulated anyone who could spend more than five minutes at a time with him without wanting to do something drastic. Chen felt a strong desire to head over to trauma 2 again and let someone else deal with the angry little man, but since there was no other doctor present in the room at the moment she realised she was stuck. She caught Pratt's eye through the window in the doors between the trauma rooms, and with her eyes tried to motion to him to get his ass over here.  
  
"Was there anything else, Dr. Romano?" she asked, silently disliking Pratt for either not getting what she'd meant or ignoring it.  
  
"Yeah, why is everyone standing around here doing absolutely nothing? This is a hospital, we don't all take five minutes off at the same time!"  
  
"Stone closed us for trauma twenty minutes ago" Chen informed him, referring to the new doctor who had taken over the ER.   
  
"He'd better have a damn good reason" Robert said.  
  
He did, but Chen didn't feel like filling Dr. Romano in. He could go ask Stone himself, she definitely didn't want to get involved in that as well.  
  
"Now what the hell is taking Lewis so long?"  
  
"I thought you said she wasn't getting the raise anyway" Abby commented.  
  
"Who put coins into you?" Robert barked. "I just wanna see her so I can yell at her."  
  
"She's seeing the mother of the two trauma patients'" Chen reminded him.  
  
"What happened?" Robert asked, taking a quick glance at the boy lying on the table.  
  
"Car crash" Abby said.  
  
"Are they stabile?"  
  
"For now," Chen told him, "but they both need a kidney transplant as soon as possible."  
  
"Both?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Now there's your rotten luck…" Robert muttered. "Find any donators yet?"  
  
"No, not yet" Chen said. "We're working on it."  
  
"Find out if the mother's a match, then get the whole clan down here **yesterday**. Don't just stand there, get moving!"  
  
Chen made her way out of the trauma room, bumping into Pratt as she entered the hallway.  
  
"Thanks for the save, Gregg" she sarcastically said. "Where the hell is Chuny, did she get a hold of any other family yet?"  
  
"No, not yet" Pratt told her. "What was Romano barking about?"  
  
"Susan's in trouble" Chen told him. "And if I don't get a hold of some relatives to these two kids, I have a feeling I'll be too."  
~*~   
An hour later Robert had abandoned his paper work and was keeping the doctors in the trauma room on their toes. Chen and Abby were hiding out in trauma 1, and Carter, Gallant and Pratt were wishing they'd never been born in trauma 2 when Lewis barged into the room with some test results in her hand.  
  
"We've found a match" she declared. "Turns out their older sister is compatible."  
  
"And..?" Robert said.  
  
"And we should get them into the OR at once!"  
  
"Ah I see, so we take both kidneys from the sister, give one each to these two and tell the family what a heroic sacrifice the sister made" Robert said. "Never mind the fact that the sister will be **dead**, at least they're only down one kid instead of two."  
  
"Well we're still checking to see if we can find another match…" Lewis said lamely. "But this is a start."  
  
"If you haven't found a second donator yet, chances are you never will" Robert said. "So how do we decide which kid gets to be the lucky one who survives?"  
  
"We'd have to ask the family" Pratt said, feeling incredibly exhausted.  
  
"Ever told a parent they have to choose which one of their kids gets to live?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Well then congratulations, this is your lucky day, maybe tomorrow you can go up to the OB and find yourself a couple with conjoined twins to hang out with."  
  
"Dr. Romano, this isn't helping" Carter said, rubbing his temple with his left hand.  
  
"Which one of the two are most likely to survive?" Gallant asked.  
  
"It doesn't really matter, it's up to the parents to decide either way" Lewis said.  
  
"But still, it might make their decision easier if they knew which one stood the better chance."  
  
"What's going on?" Chen asked, entering the room.  
  
"We found a donator" Lewis told her.  
  
"That's great."  
  
"**One**, Dr. Chen. I believe we have **two** patients" Robert said.  
  
"Well are both compatible with the donator?" Josh Hailey asked. He had kept in the background almost the entire time, scared of the situation and the ever angry Chief of Staff whom he had heard so many scaring stories about.  
  
"They're frats, fraternal twins," Robert informed him, "two-eggers are usually the most compatible donators there is. But I assume you have double-checked this?" he added with a glance at Carter.  
  
"Of course" Carter scoffed, offended by the mere suggestion that he would have overlooked a detail like that.  
  
"All right, we're standing here wasting valuable time, let's get a move on!" Robert ordered and turned to Chen. "Which one stands the better chance of making it through surgery?"  
  
"Well their injuries are different," Chen said, "but in the end it doesn't do much difference. The boy stands a better chance, although he'd probably end up paralysed. The girl has had her spleen removed in an emergency procedure and--"  
  
"So the boy, then?"  
  
"It's pretty much just a speculation, the girl probably stands pretty much the same chance…"  
  
"Well that made everything much easier, thank you Dr. Chen" Robert sarcastically said, and then turned to Lewis. "Where are the parents, I wanna go talk to them."  
  
"I'm coming with you" Lewis said and showed him the way. "They need to make up their minds pretty fast, or neither one of them will make it."  
~*~   
"What would you do?" Chen asked Pratt a while later, while they were waiting for the parents' decision.  
  
"I don't know…" Pratt said, and leaned back against the wall in trauma 1. "I really don't know… How do you decide what kid lives and what kid dies? I mean… how do you look the surviving one in the face after that?"  
  
"Knowing you sentenced his or her twin to death" Chen added. "I don't think I could do it. It's always hard to give up a child, but when you know it's for the child's **death**…"  
  
The doors to the trauma room suddenly flung open, and Lewis and Romano stormed in. Chen and Pratt flew to their feet and the others hurried over from trauma 1.  
  
"The boy" Robert said. "It took them forever, but now that we've got an answer let's move it! I've called the OR, they're waiting for us!"  
  
"And what happens to the girl?" Hailey asked.  
  
"She'll probably be dead by the time Sean here gets out of surgery" Romano told him. "Unless you find her a donator damn soon, of course."  
  
"So she's just gonna die?"  
  
"Haven't you been in since they came in?" Robert asked. "Shouldn't that be obvious to you? Now move it everyone, or we'll lose both of them!"  
  
He grabbed the gurney and without waiting for the others began to roll it down the hall. Abby and Lewis quickly followed, and soon the others went as well. Only Gallant and Hailey remained with the sister.  
  
Romano got on the elevator and Abby went with them up to the OR, while the others stayed behind down in the ER. Neither one of them knew what to say or do now, it was one of the most mentally exhausting cases anyone of them had seen. Lewis spoke first.  
  
"Do you think he'll make it?"  
  
"I hope so" Carter said.  
  
"What sucks the most is that Romano would probably have handled the surgery without much trouble before his accident, now all he'll be doing is yelling at whoever performs the surgery until that unlucky person loses his cool…" Lewis said. "How can he be so cold in a case like this? Was he the only one who never seemed emotional at all?"  
  
"He was pretty emotional when he first arrived" Chen told her. "When he was looking for you to tell you your raise is out the window."  
  
"Damn it…" Lewis exclaimed. "I'd forgotten about that… son of a bitch…"  
  
"Well good luck getting back on his good side" Chen said with a sigh. "Honestly, how does Corday put up with him?"  
  
"He's either really good in bed or a complete wuss outside of work" was Lewis' theory. "And I don't know which scenario bothers me more. Elizabeth needs to have her head examined."  
  
"Is anyone else's shift over?" Carter asked. "Mine is. I don't feel like going home and waiting for Abby in an empty apartment…"  
  
"If you're suggesting going out for drinks then screw you, I still have three more hours and I don't need to work through them with the mental image if you all drowning your sorrows in liquor" Lewis said, and turned to go back to trauma 2. "I'm just gonna sit by Karen and wait for a miracle."  
  
"I actually think I'll join you" Chen said. "I wouldn't be able to think about anything else anyway…"  
  
"I'm up for drinks" Pratt said with a sigh. "This is the worst bloody day I've had since I got to this stinking hospital!"  
  
"Let's go" Carter said.  
  
Chen followed Lewis back to trauma 2 and sat down on a chair. She felt like crying, but she knew she wouldn't. It brought some comfort to her to see that everyone else was as moved by the fate of the fraternal twins as she was. Lewis seemed as close to tears as Chen felt, Gallant was staring mechanically into space and Hailey had gone somewhere to throw up. The only one who didn't seem bothered at all was Dr. Romano.  
~*~  
Nearly ten hours later Robert Romano got back home from the hospital. The boy, Sean, was stabile at the moment, but there were no guarantees that he would survive. His sister Karen was still alive when Robert left, but chances were she'd be dead the next time he stepped through the doors to the hospital.  
  
He went to his bedroom, got undressed and closed his eyes for the first time since he'd stepped into trauma 1 earlier that day. All the feelings and emotions he had suppressed from that moment on came washing over him now, and he felt like he needed to throw up. He wondered what Sean's life would be like, if he survived that is. Karen would be gone, her life would have been sacrificed for the benefit of his own. What a load to live with!  
  
He crawled into bed, feeling like he hadn't slept in a hundred years. Elizabeth was asleep, curled up on her side, looking so very peaceful. He was glad she hadn't been there today, glad she had been spared of the horrible case. He rolled as close to her as he could get and put his bad arm around her. It ached after the long hours in the OR, but he was too exhausted to care. Elizabeth woke up, and seemed relieved that he was back home. She gave him a long kiss, and noticed that something wasn't quite right, but decided that whatever it was it could wait until tomorrow. Robert nuzzled his face against her neck and held her tightly, looking for some comfort. She put her arms around him and gave him whatever comfort she could, holding him as he went to sleep.  
~*~  
Leave a review and tell me whether to continue or to find something else to do with my time :) 


	2. Perfect Day

  
  
**Author's note**: Well, here's the second part, and it's starting to turn into a story now... I'm aware that I jump a little between using characters' first names and last names, but hopefully that won't be a problem :)  
**Disclaimer**: The _ER_ characters belong to Warner Brothers. The lyrics for _A Love So Beautiful_ belongs to whoever wrote it.  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
Elizabeth carefully got out of bed, managing not to wake Robert up. He was still curled up to her when she woke up, which made getting out of bed without waking him up much harder. A glance at the alarm clock told her it was past eight in the morning. He was sleeping in. She realised with a sigh that she would have to walk the dog, and decided to just let Gretel out in the back yard. Ella needed breakfast, she didn't have time for dog walks.  
  
She returned to the bedroom 90 minutes later, and found that he was awake. She could hear him in the shower, singing as usual, but noticed that he wasn't singing anything by Simon or Garfunkel. It was some sentimental love song about long lost love, and she couldn't help but roll her eyes and wonder if he was being sarcastic. Romantic was probably the last quality she would associate with Robert Romano.  
  
She angrily shoved Gretel off the bed and wished for the umpteenth time that he'd gotten himself a dachshund instead, or something else smaller and less hairy. Gretel growled at her, but then left to find out what Ella was up to. Elizabeth proceeded to make the bed, and once again wondered why on earth Robert was singing some mushy love song in the shower. Had he gone through a personality change during the night, or was he joking? She listened to the lyrics and wondered what was going on.  
  
"_We were too young to understand, to ever know…_" his voice came from the bathroom. "_That lovers drift apart, and that's the way love goes…_"  
  
"Robert, you're scaring me" she mumbled under her breath. She kneeled down to pick up a book that had fallen down on the floor. How did their two bedrooms end up so messy? There was always **something** lying around on the floor. If she kept this up she wouldn't be able to nag at Ella to clean her room when she got older.  
  
"_And when I think of you, I fall in love again…_" the singing continued from the bathroom, briefly interrupted by some gargling.  
  
Elizabeth stopped for a second and wondered again why he was singing this mush instead of his usual lions. She couldn't help but wonder if it was somehow connected to his low spirits when he got home last night. She had never given much thought to his previous love life, in fact she'd never even reflected over the fact that he had one. She had never been able to picture him in a long term relationship, but it seemed as if he was going to have one with her now, so it wasn't impossible that he'd had one in the past. She couldn't help but wonder if he was singing about some former girlfriend of his.  
  
"_A love so beautiful, in every way…_" he continued in the shower. "_A love so beautiful, we let it slip away…_"  
  
"I must be going out of my mind!" she decided, and threw the book she was still holding on the bed.  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
It was late in the evening, but neither of them had a shift until after noon the next day. It was a rather warm October night, probably one of the last warm nights of the year. Elizabeth sat out in her back yard, warming her hands in her armpits one at a time while the other one held a glass of red wine. She would have to go back inside soon, but she wanted to stay out just a bit longer. It was a clear sky, and she had always had a secret interest in astronomy. She tried to spot some constellations, but gave up after only finding Ursa Major, or was it Minor?  
  
Robert was inside, Ella was asleep, Gretel was guarding Ella… The only thing that disturbed her silence was the radio which kept her company with its music. She was alone with her thoughts, when for the second time that day the thoughts came creeping. What did she really know about Robert's past? She knew he had lost someone when he was a teenager, but she didn't know who that was, it could have been a lover or a family member, or neither. She had no information whatsoever about his love life before she came into the picture, it wasn't a subject that had come up during their years of working together. But his behaviour when he got home last night and his very unusual choice of song for his morning shower had made her wonder.  
  
Her thoughts were interrupted when the door behind her opened and the subject of her thoughts joined her on the patio. He sat down behind her and wrapped a blanket around them both, shivering slightly in the cold night.  
  
"Trying to catch a cold?" he asked.  
  
"It's a lovely night."  
  
"Nights aren't lovely" he responded. "Nights are just the world closing its eyes while sleeping."  
  
"Well this night is lovely…" she said.  
  
He didn't say anything else for a while, and neither did she. She was starting to wonder about this relationship, what it really was and where it was going. She couldn't even tell when it had turned into a relationship, one day they had just taken for granted that they'd be spending the night together. She wasn't even really sure of how they ended up kissing, and then sleeping together one night, in the first place. All she knew was that a few weeks later they had started spending every night together and a couple of months later showed their new relationship more open. But nothing had ever been said, nothing had ever really been made official. She wasn't sure what she was feeling for him, or if the feelings she had were genuine. And she was even more unsure about his feelings. They had never said anything out loud, the three famous words were still unsaid, and she didn't know if either one of them would say it anytime soon. The strongest words that had come out of their mouths so far was "I like you" and "you mean a lot to me".  
  
It was the strangest kind of relationship she had ever had with someone in her entire life. But then again, what was to expect when she was in a relationship with Dr. Romano? Most people would probably not have gotten this far, but yet it felt like they hadn't gotten anywhere at all. Elizabeth knew that something would have to happen sooner or later, but she hoped for sooner. She really wish she knew how he was feeling, she was terrified of falling in love and then finding out that he was never as serious as she was. But she couldn't ask him, it was not the kind of thing you asked someone. She wondered about the song he'd been singing earlier. By now she had convinced herself that it was about a love from his past. Was he still hooked up on that other woman? Was she still hooked up on Mark?  
  
"That song you were singing this morning…" she said, not knowing why she said it at all. "I've never heard you sing anything like that before."  
  
"You hate Simon and Garfunkel. I thought I'd change the record" he said, grinning at his own joke.  
  
"Didn't sound like a song typical of you…" she continued, ignoring his lousy joke. "Who were you singing about?"  
  
"The dog I had before Gretel" he claimed, and she sighed.  
  
"Come on, I'm curious…"  
  
"Curiosity killed the cat" he replied. "Lizzie, honestly it's none of your business."  
  
She let that answer sink in and wondered what on earth that meant. She assumed it meant that she was right, that it was some former girlfriend that he might still have feelings for, but there was no satisfaction in being right. She felt disappointed, and at the same time wondered why she reacted so strongly. She hadn't analysed her feelings for him for a long time, and now that she was starting to think them through she wondered if maybe the tables had turned. She had suspected for a long time that he fancied her, and she'd never been interested, but now it seemed like it was the other way around. She felt stronger about him than he felt about her.  
  
"Why, are you jealous?" his teasing voice broke the silence.  
  
"No" she said, not knowing whether or not that was true.  
  
"Nah, of course you're not" he said. "You know you're my best girl."  
  
She felt like elbowing him in his good arm for having said that with what sounded like a joking tone of voice. Why did he always have to do this to her? Leave her to be the one who felt awkward, felt bad or was in the sticky spot? How could he always manage to escape unharmed? It wasn't fair.  
  
She sighed and leaned back against his chest. Now she wouldn't be able to get this out of her head for a while. Why did she have to be so damn obsessive? And why did he always have to be so care-free?  
  
Scorpion's "Still Loving You" was playing on the radio and he was absent-mindedly humming along. Elizabeth had to force herself not to read anything into this as well. But she wished the radio would play something else, even something by Simon and Garfunkel.  
  
"I have to admit…" he said, breaking the silence once again. "You were right. This is a pretty nice night."  
  
"The night looks a lot different when you're not seeing it from the hospital roof" she said, just to say something at all.  
  
"Yeah, I'm having some trouble thinking anything is nice when seen from the hospital roof anymore" he said. "Though I'm sure if I saw you there I'd think it was a pretty nice sight."  
  
He raised his left arm slowly and grabbed her glass of wine, taking a sip from it and pausing for a moment before he returned it to her.  
  
"Your arm is a lot better now" she said. "It's nice to see."  
  
"I know," he said, "it's gotten a lot better over the past few months. This thing between us has been good for me." She didn't respond, but he didn't mind. He was getting used to her getting silent every once in a while, even sometimes in the middle of conversations. "Finally things started to go my way when you and I… happened. Getting a sunny side in my life has worked magic on this stupid limb. So thank you."  
  
"For what?" she asked.  
  
"For everything, Lizzie" he said and pulled her closer. "I'm glad I'm here with you now…"  
  
She put her glass down and finally put all of her thoughts aside. He didn't sound like he had no feelings at all for her. She was glad to be there with him too, it felt good to sit together out in the back yard like this.   
  
"You're welcome."  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
The ER was chaos. As usual. People never seemed to stop hurting themselves or get sick. Sometimes Chen wondered if they hadn't treated the entire population of Chicago at least twice by now. She hated night shifts, especially when she'd worked an exhausting shift the day before. Karen Simmons, the young girl who had been in a car accident with her brother Sean the day before, was still alive but she wouldn't make it for much longer. They were still trying to find a suitable donator, but no luck so far.  
  
Chen leaned against the admin's desk and rubbed her temples. Why was she stupid enough to come back to this profession? Couldn't she at least had gone for a different field, anything but emergency medicine? She sighed and wished her shift would end, but she knew she had another three hours before she could go home.  
  
"Dr. Chen!"  
  
She looked over at Josh Hailey, and wondered if she could force him to go away with her willpower. Probably not.  
  
"I'm on a break" she said. "Find somebody else."  
  
"Everyone else is in trauma 1" Hailey said and bit his lip. Gosh, he was such a sissy.  
  
"Okay" she sighed. "What is it?"  
  
"I have an elderly woman here with a cut in her finger."  
  
"So suture it!"  
  
"Well, the thing is…" he began, and bit his lip again. "Well… See, she hurt herself more than two hours ago and the blood has started to coagulate, and--"  
  
"And what's the problem?"  
  
"She won't let me touch her!"  
  
Chen sighed and wondered what the problem was this time. Hailey was African American, but if that was the problem then Chen wouldn't be able to help. People who had racist issues with African Americans tended to have the same kind of issues with her. But she decided to take a look at the woman, it couldn't hurt.  
  
"What seems to be the problem?" she asked the woman as she entered the exam room.  
  
"This boy does not get to sow up my finger!" the old woman stubbornly declared. Chen sighed.  
  
"I can assure you that Mr. Hailey--"  
  
"Are you a real doctor?"  
  
"Yes madam, now would you let me take a--"  
  
"Well I don't want you to do it either" the woman said. "This is County General, right?"  
  
"Yes" Chen said with a sigh.  
  
"Well then I'm in the right place."  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
"Dr. Romano's mother?" Lewis said with an eyebrow touching the ceiling. "Really? Are you serious?"  
  
"Yes. And now I know where he gets his charms from" Chen muttered and leaned against the admin's desk again. "And the stubborn woman claims she doesn't trust anyone else to fix her precious finger."  
  
"So call Romano here, this is going to be fun" Lewis said with a grin. "Maybe if I get on the good side with his mother I'll get my raise."  
  
"Maybe" Chen said, without believing it for a second.  
  
"So, what are you going to do?" Hailey asked.  
  
"He's your patient" Chen said, eager to get out of the situation.  
  
"But…"  
  
"Call Dr. Romano, tell him his mother won't be sutured by anyone else than him" Lewis said. "And make sure you have a good life insurance policy."  
  
"But…"  
  
"Have fun" Lewis said with a grin and went to check on one of her patients.  
  
"Good luck" Chen added.  
  
Hailey made a face and trembled like a leaf when he dialled the number given to him by the desk clerk. After a number of signals he hung up.  
  
"He wasn't in."  
  
"Here, try this number" Chuny said and handed him a number on a piece of paper. She grinned and looked forward to seeing his reaction when he found out whose number it was. Chen frowned and shook her head at Chuny's amusement.  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
Elizabeth reached out her hand and fumbled a bit with the phone before she got it to her ear.  
  
"Hello?" she mumbled into the receiver.  
  
"Dr. Corday!" Hailey exclaimed, in complete shock over finding out who he'd called. Chuny disguised a giggle into a cough. "Dr. Corday! I, I'm uh, I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to wake you, uhm, they must, uh, it must have been a mix-up with the phone numbers, I must have gotten the wrong number! I was looking for Dr. Romano--"  
  
"Hold on" Elizabeth mumbled and rolled over on her back. She gave Robert a nudge. "It's for you." He mumbled half the curses in his vocabulary and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with one hand while reaching for the phone with the other.  
  
"Who the hell is this?" he barked. "This had better be a disaster in line with the Hindenburg crash or the battle of Helm's Deep, otherwise whoever you are will be out of a job tomorrow! Hello? **Hello**?"  
  
Chuny was no longer able to disguise her giggles, and Lewis who had rejoined them was having some trouble as well, as Hailey just stared at the phone as if it had just predicted the future for him. On the other end Romano still tried to make contact with whoever was on the line.  
  
"I think you scared him" Elizabeth said, and rested her head against his shoulder while putting an arm across his chest.  
  
"Damn sissy! **Hello**? Whoever the hell this is--"  
  
"Dr. Romano, hi!" Chen's voice said, as she gave up and took the phone from the somewhat traumatised Josh Hailey. "Sorry, bad connection."  
  
"Bad connection my ass, what the hell do you want?"  
  
"Well, we have your mother here--"  
  
"My what? Check again Ling-Mei, my mother is in Europe."  
  
"It's **Jing**-Mei" Chen sighed. "And she's not in Europe anymore. She's here at County and she wants you to come suture her finger."  
  
"I'm sorry, did we hire only doctors who were incapable of suturing?" Robert said. "Here's how you do it, you take a needle--"  
  
"She wants you to do it" Chen said, wishing she had never gotten out of bed this morning. "She refuses to let anyone of us handle it."  
  
"I don't treat family members" Robert informed her. "Damn it, put her on the phone!"  
  
Chen was relieved to get to hand the phone over to someone else. She put it down on the desk and went to get Mrs. Romano, who was just as stubborn as her son. She wondered which one of them would give in first.  
  
When she returned with the old woman, Lewis was taking care of the still shocked Hailey, who looked like he didn't have a clue what had just hit him. She mouthed 'you're evil' to Chuny, who just smiled and shrugged her shoulder. Chen once again leaned against the desk as the two Romanos were put on the phone together and started debating in some foreign language.  
  
"How's he doing?" she asked Lewis, nodding at Hailey.  
  
"I think he's just been scarred for life" Lewis replied.  
  
"Chuny you are evil."  
  
In the end, Robert appeared to win the battle with his mother, who hung up and said something that didn't sound too flattering in a language Chen didn't understand.  
  
"Are you ready to be sutured now, Mrs. Romano?" Chen asked, not looking forward to the task. But it would be no use forcing Hailey to do it…  
  
"His own mother…" the old woman muttered and stormed past Chen back to the room where she'd come from. "I see what you mean" Lewis said to Chen. "That old lady is nothing but charm."  
  
"And I get to be the lucky one who fixes her finger" Chen said. "Go me."  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
"Dr. Romano!" Chen exclaimed forty-five minutes later as Robert came barging into the ER. "I thought you weren't coming, we've already fixed your mother."  
  
"I don't treat family members" Robert reminded her. "She can't stay here all night, I have to take her home, where the hell is she?"  
  
"Exam four" Chen told him and grabbed a chart. Two more hours to go… she thanked her lucky star tomorrow was her day off.  
  
She examined her new patient, who had fallen off his bike and hit his head, and ordered some labs and a CT. She then went back to admin and saw that Romano's mother was sitting alone in chairs.  
  
"Mrs. Romano?" she asked. "Is everything all right?"  
  
"Hasn't seen his own mother in three years, and he runs off again!" the old woman complained. "I'm gonna be stuck here all night."  
  
"He took off?"  
  
"He'll be back. I hope…" The last bit was added with a sigh.  
  
"Do you want me to go look for him?"  
  
"No, that's not a problem" the old woman answered. Chen shrugged her shoulders and decided to take another five minutes off. The place was slow at the moment anyway.  
  
"Hey how's Corday's fan doing?" Chuny asked with a grin when she passed by Chen in the hallway.  
  
"Lewis gave up and sent him home. I really think you ruined his whole belief system tonight."  
  
"A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do!"  
  
Chen didn't comment. She stepped onto the opening elevator and pressed a button. She decided to go check on Karen Simmons and see how she was doing. Chen was still hoping for a miracle, but she had a feeling none would come. Karen was slipping away from them, and there was nothing they could do about it.  
  
The room was almost empty, except for Karen and her mother who was asleep on a bed someone had rolled in. The only sounds heard were the ones of the machines that were keeping Karen alive. The room seemed so peaceful, but Chen doubted that anyone was experiencing any peace in there at the moment. Karen was only ten years old, and it was horrible to see her lying there, knowing she most likely wouldn't make it. Her left kidney had been removed and her right was barely functioning.  
  
Chen checked the machines and the girl's pulse, just to have something to do. She didn't know if she should say something or not, she didn't want to wake the mother up. The door opened and she turned her head to see who it was.  
  
"Dr. Romano!"  
  
"I've just checked on her brother" Romano told her quietly, careful not to wake the mother who had finally fallen asleep. "It looks as if he's going to be fine, although we're not sure yet whether or not he'll be paralysed."  
  
"Your mother's waiting for you downstairs."  
  
"I know, I just wanted to check how they were doing…" He walked over to Karen and took a glance at her EEG and EKG. "When the mother wakes up, talk to her about organ donations."  
  
"Have they found a donator for Karen?" Chen asked, eyes perking up.  
  
"I meant Karen as a donator. It would be a shame wasting those organs she still has working! Mrs. Simmons will probably feel the same way."  
  
"You can't be serious!" Chen said.  
  
"What, you'd rather just bury her?"  
  
"She's not brain dead!"  
  
"So?" Robert turned and went toward the door. He stopped in the doorway and turned his head to look at Chen. "We both know Karen is as good as dead. Even if we do find her a kidney she'll probably die during surgery. Talk to the mother, encourage her to help other families in the same situation."  
  
Chen stared after him as he left. She couldn't believe him, the girl still had brain activity. For a second she had thought he might have some good sides after all, since he took the time to check on the twins. But then he ordered her to ask the mother to agree to have her daughter's organs donated, while the daughter still had brain activity. He really was an insensitive jerk, and Chen was glad she didn't work with him more often.  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
Elizabeth's day did not start well. The first person she encountered when she came to work was Josh Hailey, who was incredibly mad and offended.  
  
"Dr. Corday!" he yelled at her the second she walked through the doors.  
  
"Hello Josh" she greeted him, wondering what was wrong now. Had she missed out on making a surgical consult for him because she'd had a day off? Josh had a tendency of being offended by everything and anything.  
  
"I need to speak with you!" he informed her and followed her as she headed for the doctor's lounge.  
  
"Then go ahead, I've got a few minutes to talk."  
  
"You're seeing Dr. Romano?" he spat out, as if Romano and Stalin had been synonymous.  
  
"So that **was** you on the phone last night?"  
  
"You're seeing him?"  
  
"Not that it's any of your business, but yes. I'm seeing him."  
  
"But why?" Josh asked, sounded incredibly disgusted. "The man's a jerk, a, a pig! Everybody hear loathes him!"  
  
"Do they?" Elizabeth said casually and unlocked her locker.  
  
"He's a sexist, racist scumbag!"  
  
"Is that so?" Elizabeth said, getting annoyed. "And you've heard him say sexist and racist comments?"  
  
"**I** haven't, but everyone else--"  
  
"Oh please…"  
  
"I'm serious!" Josh said. "Look, Elizabeth--"  
  
"It's Dr. Corday."  
  
"Dr. Corday, listen, the guy's a jerk!"  
  
"Hailey," Elizabeth said and slammed her locker shut, "do you really think you know him better than I do? Or for that matter know what's good for me more than I do? I **know** what Robert is like, I've known him longer than I've known anyone else at this hospital. And for that matter I've always known him **better** than the rest here."  
  
"So what are you saying, he's a saint in disguise?"  
  
"No" Elizabeth said with an annoyed sigh. "But don't presume to tell me all about him and his personality."  
  
"The man is a jerk, and--"  
  
"Well so are you!" Elizabeth cut him off. "Or what do you call the way you're acting right now?"  
  
"I just don't get it!" Josh said and looked sulky. "And by the way, thanks for telling me! Do you have any idea how embarrassed I was last night?"  
  
"Hey, my love life is none of your bloody business" Elizabeth said, getting more and more angry. "I've told you I'm not interested in a romantic relationship with you, so don't come and tell me I've been leading you on!"  
  
"You're only gonna end up hurt" Josh angrily replied. "That guy is rotten through and through, you should have seen how cold he was during a trauma case this weekend!"  
  
"He sees a million trauma cases at work, it's called professionalism" Elizabeth replied.  
  
"Not cases like this one!" Josh insisted. "There were two twins, and--"  
  
"What the hell does it matter?" Elizabeth snapped. "Stop lecturing me about my love life, you are out of line Hailey."  
  
"At least I'm not cold and heartless" Josh replied. "At least I care! That jerk cares of nothing but himself, I know his type."  
  
"Oh do you really?"  
  
"Yeah, I do. He's a big jerk, and you know it as well as I do. Doesn't take more than five minutes with him to realise that. Why do you even want to be with him?"  
  
"Because I'm in love with him!" Elizabeth yelled, and angrily stormed past Josh on her way to the elevator. Once inside the elevator she sunk down to the floor. "Oh god…" she mumbled.  
  
Well, then that was settled. Josh Hailey probably hated her now, and he had just found out more about her feelings for Romano than she had known herself up until that point. Great. Now what? She knew she had meant what she had blurted out, but it scared her. Robert didn't know, and more importantly, she didn't know whether he felt the same or not. What a mess…  
  
The elevator doors opened and she got up on her feet. Luckily no one seemed to be around at the moment, she felt a bit stupid for having sat on the floor like a child. She wandered down the hall and found herself wishing she wouldn't run into Robert. She wouldn't know what to say to him right now, her mind was one big mess at the moment.  
  
"This is going to please Dr. Romano" a desk clerk told her as she stopped to check what surgeries she had scheduled for the day.  
  
"Huh?" she said, jumping slightly as if the nurse had read her mind.  
  
"The donator he was hoping for, the mother gave her okay."  
  
"What donator?"  
  
"Horrible thing, a young girl who was in a car accident this weekend…"  
  
"So she's going to be a donator? Well that's good" Elizabeth said, although the thought of a young girl being in the state when she could donate organs didn't exactly seem good to her.  
  
"Hopefully that will keep him happy today" the clerk said and sighed. "He scares me."  
  
"It's like with rabid dogs, don't look directly into his eyes" Elizabeth mumbled and continued to the surgeons lounge.  
  
"Lizzie!"  
  
Elizabeth stopped at the sound of the familiar voice and turned around. Robert came up to her, grabbed her by the arm and led her into the lounge. Why did he always have to turn up when you least wanted him to?  
  
"Good day" he said. "Sorry 'bout last night."  
  
"No problem" Elizabeth said, trying to remember exactly what had happened last night. She had gone back to sleep right after he'd left and didn't remember much, only that he wasn't going to come back that night.  
  
"Dinner at my place tonight" he told her. "Mother's insisting on meeting you."  
  
"Your mother?"  
  
"Yes. I have one of those, you know."  
  
"I thought she was in Europe" Elizabeth said and sat down in an armchair.  
  
"So did I. How much do you remember from last night, really?"  
  
"Only that we earned ourselves a new enemy in Josh Hailey" Elizabeth sighed.  
  
"Ah, who cares? My mother apparently decided that Europe wasn't amusing anymore and got on a plane and flew over here."  
  
"Just like that?"  
  
"She's always been the spontaneous one."  
  
"I can see that."  
  
"We won't have to put up with her for long, she's flying to Boston in two days to see my brother."  
  
"I thought you had a sister."  
  
"Yeah, that too. Anyway, so dinner tonight and then she'll move on."  
  
"I hope she doesn't hate me" Elizabeth said with a sigh. "Last I heard, women with children weren't very popular as plausible girlfriends."  
  
"Nah, she won't care" Robert said. "My brother hasn't had a date in four years with a woman who hasn't had children."  
  
"Great" Elizabeth mumbled.  
  
"Well, I've gotta go see how things are going with our kidney patient" Robert said and headed for the door.  
  
"I heard you had some young girl that will be a donator."  
  
"Really? Splendid, now I'm gonna go see how her brother's doing."  
  
"She'll be donating to him?"  
  
"Nope. See you later, Lizzie."  
  
Elizabeth watched him leave and wondered what was going on this time. Whatever it was, it was probably a lot less fun than he made it sound.  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
Elizabeth had to admit that she was quite relieved that Mrs. Romano would be flying to Boston in a few days. Not that she wasn't nice, or that she had problems with Ella, but Elizabeth had seldom met a woman who talked that much. Elizabeth and Robert could be happy if they could get a word in, it was as if she'd made up her mind to tell her son exactly everything that had happened between the day she last left the States and the current hour. Robert didn't seem very interested, he had probably heard most of it several times before, and Elizabeth had no idea who any of these people were anyway.  
  
'Perfect end to a perfect day' she thought.  
  
"… and then Heather of course had to make a whole big deal out of this, your sister can never take anything lightly, and before you knew it…"  
  
Elizabeth wondered how long it would be before she got a headache. All these names were making her head spin, and her long day at work didn't make things much better. She wondered if Robert's mother was always this chatty, or only on occasions when she hadn't seen her son for three years.  
  
"Mother!" Robert finally interrupted her. "Enough about Heather! I don't want to hear another word. How long will you be staying in the States?"  
  
"That all depends on David" Mrs. Romano told him. "I'm planning on staying a few months, if he doesn't throw me out. But if he does I'll just come stay here."  
  
"In an apartment of your own, then" Robert said.  
  
"Can you believe him, Lizzie?" Mrs. Romano said to Elizabeth, automatically nicknaming her the same way Robert always had. Apparently nicknames ran in the family. "His own mother…"  
  
"You've said that around ten times already" Robert said. "Look, it's not that I don't want you to stay, but I really don't have the time…"  
  
"He never has the time" Mrs. Romano informed Elizabeth.  
  
"Stay with David, it'll be good…" Robert said and emptied his glass of wine. "Say hi to him for me."  
  
"When was the last time you spoke with him?" his mother asked, and then turned to Elizabeth once again. "To think you have to force your children to socialise with each other."  
  
"He was here taking care of Gretel when I was in the hospital" Robert reminded her.  
  
"You're always in the hospital."  
  
"My arm, mother."  
  
"Oh, that" Mrs. Romano said. "Well, guess what, on the subject of something completely different…"  
  
"What?" Robert asked with a sigh.  
  
"I've brought you something, one might say."  
  
"What? Another one of those cheese cutters? Not that I don't appreciate the gesture, but I never eat cheese."  
  
"No, not a cheese cutter."  
  
"What, then?"  
  
"It's a surprise" Mrs. Romano said and looked very pleased with herself.  
  
Robert and Elizabeth shared a resigned look.  
  
"Well since I hate surprises, thank you" he said.  
  
"Oh you'll like this one" his mother said and looked very smug.  
  
Robert sighed and got up from his chair. He hated surprises and surprise visits, and his mother knew that. He eyed her smug look and wondered what on earth she had gotten into her head now. Knowing her, it could be anything from a monkey to a toaster that she had brought, and neither one of those options sounded tempting.  
  
Elizabeth rose as well and helped him clear off the table. She couldn't wait to get into bed and end this incredibly long day. She wondered what his mother would say about her spending the night, but then again they weren't exactly teenagers. And all she wanted tonight was to sleep anyway, she was far too exhausted for anything else.  
  
The phone rang, and Robert went to answer it in another room, leaving Elizabeth and Mrs. Romano alone together. Mrs. Romano grabbed the rest of the things from the table and helped Elizabeth put it all into the dishwasher.  
  
"Well it was a delightful dinner" Elizabeth said, just to say something.  
  
"Thank you, dear" Mrs. Romano replied.  
  
"So…" Elizabeth said, not knowing what to say to break the silence. "It was very nice to get to meet you."  
  
"Likewise" the older woman said. "I've been wondering about you."  
  
"Has… Robert talked much about me?"  
  
"Yes, you're the redhead who called him a horrid turd, right?"  
  
Elizabeth blushed. She didn't even know that he knew she'd called him that.  
  
"Well… that was a long time ago."  
  
"Yes, you seem to like him better now" Mrs. Romano noted. "And if you don't go back to calling him turd, whatever **that** is anyway, you might just stay together for a while."  
  
"So you think he likes me?" Elizabeth jokingly asked, and thought to herself that his mother sure didn't think much of love and relationships.  
  
"He tolerates you" Mrs. Romano said. "But that's more than what he does with most people."  
  
Elizabeth was still trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean when Robert came back, and hadn't made much further progress with the question by the time they went to bed. She decided to let it go for now and just try to go to sleep, but when she looked over at Robert she couldn't help but to wonder. She was in love with him, but what did he really feel about her?  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
~*~  
Leave a review please! Comments and suggestions are always welcome... 


	3. Surprise

**Author's note**: Happy Walpurghis everyone! Not that it feels much like spring since it's snowing where I live... :-) I'm not all that happy about this chapter, I promise the next one will be better, and include some more characters. But please read and review!  
**Disclaimer**: You know the drill...  
~*~  
  
~*~  
  
~*~  
  
"Don't worry about it, Lizzie" Mrs. Romano said and twirled some pasta around her fork. "It's not the first time he's stood me up, and it won't be the last."  
  
They were having lunch at a small restaurant, Elizabeth and Mrs. Romano. Robert was supposed to have been there too, but had gotten caught up at work and after a while called to say he wouldn't come to lunch at all. He would pick his mother up in an hour to take her to the airport.  
  
"Well he really couldn't get out" Elizabeth tried to defend him. "One of his patients, a boy who's just had a kidney transplant, threw a clot."  
  
"You don't sound too bothered."  
  
"We see it all the time, you can't let it get to you. Especially not when it's someone else's patient."  
  
Elizabeth wished someone would have paged her down for an emergency as well, she would gladly have gotten out of this lunch. She felt awkward around Mrs. Romano, and now she didn't have Robert there to support her. She spiked some fish on her fork and wished an hour would go by faster.  
  
"Well, I guess this at least gives us a chance to get to know each other better" she said, just to say something.  
  
"Right, not that there's much use with it."  
  
"Sorry?"  
  
"You're a nice person Lizzie, but most likely you won't be involved with Robert the next time I come to Chicago."  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?" Elizabeth asked, wondering if Robert's mother hated her, or had some form of reversed Oedipus complex.  
  
"Robert doesn't believe in love and lasting relationships" Elizabeth was informed. "He never sticks with women for long."  
  
"What makes you so sure that's not something that can change?" Elizabeth asked. "Perhaps not with me, but somewhere along the road..." she added lamely, not wanting to sound too sure of herself.  
  
"Robert hates having to depend on people" Mrs. Romano said. "Depending on people is inconvenient for him."  
  
"It can't be just that" Elizabeth said and wondered if now would be a good time to choke on a bone and get out of this conversation.  
  
"When he was a teenager, he lost someone..." Mrs. Romano said and trailed off for a second. When she continued she seemed to be miles away. "Someone he depended on. After that he pretty much made up his mind never to depend on anyone again."  
  
"Well he's not a teenager anymore" Elizabeth said. "It's been twenty years, I'm sure he's gotten over that by now."  
  
"We'll just see."  
  
Elizabeth rolled her eyes and wondered if the real problem here was that his mother didn't like that he didn't depend on her anymore. She decided to steer the conversation into other subjects, preferably avoiding anything else that had to do with relationships. It was obvious that Mrs. Romano didn't have the best view of togetherness. Elizabeth wondered if bitterness ran in the Romano family, or if she'd just been unlucky enough to encounter the bitter side of the clan.  
  
"It's kind of like that Elton John song, you know..."  
  
"What?" Elizabeth said, not having followed the latest developments in the discussion.  
  
"Robert. He's like that Elton John song. If it's the kind of love that ties you down, he doesn't want it."  
  
"Lovely..." Elizabeth muttered, this time wishing that it was Robert she was impaling with her fork. "Just lovely..."  
  
"But it was nice getting to know you!" Mrs. Romano added, making Elizabeth feel like she was on her way to her execution. She had lost her appetite and didn't think she'd be able to get down another bite. This whole conversation was making her queasy. "You're done eating?" Mrs. Romano asked with a raised eyebrow. "You're not one of those women who starve themselves just to look like toothpicks?"  
  
"Of course not!" Elizabeth said grumpily and finished her fish out of pure defiance. She would be glad to see this woman off at the airport, that much was for sure.  
~*~  
  
An hour later they arrived at the airport, and Mrs. Romano went ahead to check in her luggage while Robert and Elizabeth looked for a parking spot. They didn't say much until they had parked and were walking to the entrance.  
  
"Thank you for being there at lunch" Elizabeth sarcastically said.  
  
"Anything for you, Liz."  
  
"You could have at least told me in advance..."  
  
"If I'd known the patient would throw a clot and crash in surgery, I probably wouldn't have set a date for lunch anyway."  
  
"So how is he doing now?"  
  
"He's stabile... but he came very close to being reunited with his sis."  
  
"The sister's dead?"  
  
"Yeah. The organ donator, remember?"  
  
"I don't think your mother is very impressed by me," Elizabeth said as they walked through the doors, "I didn't express much concern about the case."  
  
"My mother isn't easy to impress, unless you're of royal blood, but for a first encounter you've gotten off okay."  
  
"It was our second encounter today, you know."  
  
"Ah, whatever."  
  
Elizabeth felt very out of place as they caught up with Mrs. Romano and followed her to her gate. She embarked on a long monologue in a foreign language, probably telling her son what a stupid idea it had been to get involved with Elizabeth in the first place. Robert mostly just smiled and nodded, not paying much attention to his mother's babble, except for when he told her in English to take her own suitcase, she was the one with two good arms after all. Once they got to the gate he declared that they had to get back to the hospital, setting off a new line of 'your own mother's from Mrs. Romano. Finally she decided that it wasn't worth the argument and gave up the fight.  
  
"I will see you soon again" she said. "I'm going to stop by here again before I go back to Europe."  
  
"Well if not else, we'll meet in Nangiala" Robert said and gave her a kiss goodbye on the cheek.  
  
"Don't talk to me like that" his mother grumpily responded, and Elizabeth wasn't sure she wanted to know what or where Nangiala was. "Good luck" Mrs. Romano said to Elizabeth, nodding in Robert's direction.  
  
"Okay, we'll be leaving now" Robert said and grabbed Elizabeth by the arm. "Come on Lizzie, let's go. Bye mother."  
  
He wandered off down the hall, and Elizabeth was happy to follow. She couldn't help but remember how smoothly things had gone when she'd met Mark's father for the first time, and wondered if this was a bad sign.  
  
"Are your parents divorced?" she asked Robert as they headed back to the car.  
  
"No. My father died ten years ago" he answered. "Why?"  
  
"Well I didn't mean to pry, but your mother doesn't seem to have a very positive image of relationships..."  
  
"Not when it comes to me, no. Heather's a different story."  
  
"She implied that you don't believe in relationships."  
  
"That's not true" Robert said. "I believe in them, I'm just not too crazy about being in one myself."  
  
"Oh?" Elizabeth snapped at him.  
  
"I don't believe in life long partnership" he told her. "It's naïve to think that one person can fulfil your every need for the rest of your life... That can only happen in fairy tales and Meg Ryan movies."  
  
"I don't think that's what long term relationships are about" Elizabeth said, getting into the car. "I think it's about having one person to lean on, and to share things with in a whole different way than with everybody else. Someone you've been together with for a long time, someone who knows you inside out. Someone you love."  
  
"And you think one person can be everything that you need for the rest of your life?" Robert asked and started backing out the car.  
  
"Well I hope so, if not then what's the point of any relationship?"  
  
"Love always manages to stab you in the back, one way or another" he replied. "Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind spending the rest of my life loving just one person and being together with her for as long as I live. I just don't think that's possible, somewhere along the line you'll end up hurt."  
  
"It's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all" Elizabeth said and crossed her arms.  
  
"Ouch, that cliché hurt."  
  
"Robert..."  
  
"Look, I don't believe that love can be good for you unless it's the kind that won't make you depend on someone else."  
  
"Then how is it love?" Elizabeth asked.  
  
"Since when is there a definition of what is and is not love? If you love somebody but don't depend on that person, then I don't see a problem with it, but when you can't live without each other you need to run screaming for the hills."  
  
"Like that Elton John song, I suppose" Elizabeth mumbled.  
  
"What song?"  
  
"I don't know, the one about how love shouldn't mean a thing."  
  
"Never heard it. But it sounds like my kind of song..."  
  
"I still don't believe that it can be love if it's meaningless. A person who would say that has never been in love."  
  
"I beg to differ" Robert mumbled.  
  
Elizabeth glanced at him and wondered what he was thinking now. His past was like a puzzle for her and she kept searching for pieces. Was this another one? Had someone he loved hurt him and made him swear off real love?  
  
She knew she would have to ask him sooner or later if he had any intention of ever getting into a serious relationship with her, but it felt like it was too soon to ask it now. She would have to wait until she knew more about his feelings, but she hated having to wait. Even more than that she hated how he'd talked about loving someone for the rest of his life as if she definitely wasn't a candidate for the job. Did he not see her at all as a possible love interest? Was she just a friend whom he slept with? She really wished she knew what was going on in that mystery of a brain of his, but she realised that they were more likely to give the Nobel Peace Prize to George W Bush than she was to understand the way he thought.  
~*~  
  
"Does chicken sound okay with you?" Elizabeth asked later that day. They were standing by the admin's desk on the OR floor, discussing dinner plans during a ten minute break. Or more correctly, Elizabeth was discussing and Robert was nodding along, in his mind preoccupied with something else. "Well?" she asked. "How about chicken?"  
  
"Whatever, that's fine" Robert answered and sipped his coffee. "Just as long as there's lots of it, I'm starving, I didn't get any lunch at all."  
  
Elizabeth nodded and reminded herself that she had to stop by the grocery store on the way home. She was just about to ask if she should get anything else than lots of chicken, when somebody addressed him in a foreign language. Both of them looked up.  
  
"Kommer du inte ihåg mig?" a woman said in a foreign language, with what seemed like a nervous smile on her face. Elizabeth jumped slightly when Robert's cup hit the floor, but he didn't seem to notice.  
  
"Kristina!" he addressed the woman, and walked over to give her a hug. "What the hell are you doing here?"  
  
Elizabeth observed with mixed feelings as the woman said something else in the same foreign language, and he responded. Whoever this woman was, it was obviously someone he had been friends with sometime in the past. She couldn't really picture Robert having that many friends that would still be glad to see him years later, but this seemed to be proof that there were one or two.  
  
"I'm a surgeon now" the woman told him, laughing slightly. "You never thought that would happen, did you?"  
  
"No, but there's a lot of things I never thought would happen" he said and glanced down at his injured left arm. "Kristina as a surgeon, now there's a day I never thought I'd see..."  
  
Elizabeth decided immediately that she didn't like this Kristina person. She seemed too cheerful, and way too keen on her appearances. Not that she was dressed up in any way, or wore any make-up, but her lab coat didn't have a single wrinkle on it and her shoulder-length auburn hair didn't have a single hair out of place. She probably had shiny white teeth as well, Elizabeth thought to herself, grudging her own.  
  
"So what are you doing in Chicago?" Robert said and finally released the hug.  
  
"I'm meeting some people for an exchange program at Mercy" the woman answer. "We were done for the day, and I thought I'd stop by here to say hi!"  
  
"I'm glad you did!" Robert said, and looked annoyingly much like he meant it. "How did you know I was working here?"  
  
"I flew over with your mother" Kristina told him with a light laugh. "And you know how she is, she can't stop babbling... Before we had even passed by Iceland I knew as much about your job as she does."  
  
Oh great, so she was friends with Mrs. Romano. This just kept getting better and better... Elizabeth growled to herself, wondering when this hopefully brief reunion would end and hoped for Robert's sake that he wouldn't invite his friend over for dinner. In that case he'd be eating dinner alone with this Kristina person, Elizabeth had had enough of friends and relatives of his for a long time ahead.  
  
"So you're the surprise she talked about, huh?" Robert said to the foreign woman. "Damn, I knew she was up to something..."  
  
Kristina laughed and Elizabeth decided this would be the perfect time to interfere. She walked up to the happy duo, taking a detour around the coffee that had spilt on the floor when Robert dropped the cup.  
  
"Are you planning on cleaning that up yourself, or should I call housekeeping?" she asked coldly and nodded toward the puddle on the floor.  
  
"Housekeeping" he answered. "Hey Lizzie, meet an old friend of mine."  
  
"Pleasure to meet you" Elizabeth said and walked off toward the elevators. Robert gave her a puzzled look as she went and wondered if the meeting with his mother had made her snap in some way. It wouldn't be the first time his mother had had that effect on people...  
  
He turned his attention back to Kristina and decided to give her a tour of the place. He was happy to see her, she had been his OR nurse before he left to work at County for good, and they had always gotten along well. She had often talked about how she wished she was a surgeon and now, six years later, she was one, and he was happy for her. He could deal with Elizabeth and her grumpy mood later, he hadn't seen Kristina for nearly seven years and they had a lot to talk about in very little time.  
  
"Come on Stina, let me take you on a VIP tour around this little hospital of mine..." he said and lead her down the hallway.  
~*~  
  
"Asystoly..." Elizabeth said and took another glance at the heart monitor. This patient was gone. "Bloody hell... Time of death, 17:46!"  
  
She yanked her gloves off and threw them in a waste bin on her way out of the trauma room. This seemed to be her bad luck week, she hadn't managed to save a single patient today during her entire shift. Good thing for the incoming patients that she was off in less than fifteen minutes. She got the rest of her trauma gear off and headed off to speak to the family. She felt like she had had this conversation one too many times in one day, the conversation where you told somebody that a person they loved and depended on had suffered too great injuries and they were unable to save him or her. Sometimes she really hated this job.  
  
"Killed another one?" Frank, the desk clerk, asked when he saw her foul mood when she came back to admin five minutes later.  
  
"I haven't killed anybody yet, but keep it up and you'll be my first victim" she growled back at him and threw herself down in a chair that someone had conveniently vacated, rubbing her temples. "Bloody hell..."  
  
"Having a bad day?" Lewis asked sympathetically, stopping by admin to grab a chart.  
  
"More like a bad week" Elizabeth responded.  
  
"Yeah, at least you're not the one who has to examine a 76 year-old for testicular cancer" Lewis said. "It's just not fun when they're too old..."  
  
Elizabeth marvelled at Lewis' view of the world and definition of a bad day, and decided to get going ten minutes early. She didn't want to hang around and wait for another trauma to come in, which would force her to stay much longer than she had to, and given her track record for the day probably would force her to have another conversation with another person who had just lost someone they loved and depended on. All she wanted was to go home, eat her chicken and rue the day.  
  
She ran into Robert up in the OR, and he asked her to wait for him while he went and changed. She wondered why he always insisted on wearing scrubs to work when he didn't have to outside the OR, but couldn't be bothered asking the question, knowing it would only delay them further. She sat down on a chair and rested her aching head in her hands for a few seconds. She decided to squeeze in some Tylenol somewhere in her busy evening schedule of eating and going to bed, and wished Robert would hurry up already. She wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.  
  
"Come on Lizzie let's get the hell out of here" he said when he returned, somehow managing to make it sound as if she had kept him waiting for ages. She got up and followed him to the elevators. "So did we have a productive shift?" he asked.  
  
"No, I had to pronounce seven patients today" Elizabeth sighed. "I think that's a personal record."  
  
"Seven? Did you spend more than fifteen minutes with any of them?"  
  
"Well, to be fair, three of them were hamsters, belonging to a boy whose family had been in an automobile accident... He wanted me to pronounce them, it felt really morbid."  
  
"Dr. Lizzie Dolittie..."  
  
"What about you, did you have a productive shift?" she asked, doubting that he had. Last she had seen him he'd been guiding his little friend around the hospital. What a waste of time.  
  
"Extremely" he told her. "I saved that kidney boy's life, didn't I?"  
  
"Good for you" Elizabeth mumbled and got on the empty elevator. "I can't wait to get the hell out of here..."  
  
"You're insulting my hospital."  
  
Elizabeth rolled her eyes as the elevator doors closed. What she wouldn't give to be in his bed right now, only having to close her eyes and go to sleep. But unfortunately, that was not going to happen. She had had a hard enough time getting out of bed this morning, she knew she'd be better of sleeping at her own place tonight, in a bed which wasn't as comfortable.  
  
Robert put his arms around her waist and pulled her closer.  
  
"Please don't tell me you have a headache tonight..." he said, half serious, half teasing. "When you start feeding me lines like that, I'll know we're in trouble."  
  
"What if I actually do have a headache?" she asked.  
  
"Then thank the lord above there is Ibuprofen."  
  
"Perhaps **you** should be the one thanking him..." she replied.  
~*~  
  
Elizabeth groaned when Gretel jumped up on the bed. She really did hate that mutt, why did she always have to jump up on the bed at the worst of times? Or even at all? She was just about to drift off to sleep when the slobbery dog had landed next to them.  
  
"Robert..." she whined.  
  
"Gretel jump down" he mumbled from under her. The dog ignored him.  
  
"She'll not listen if you don't say it like you mean it."  
  
"You're in a better position to shove her down than I am" he replied. "Gretel, jump down!" he then added in a firmer tone. The dog obediently jumped down. Elizabeth sighed.  
  
"And now I'm awake again. Great..."  
  
"Mmhmmm..." he mumbled in agreement and seemed to fall asleep.  
  
"Traitor" she mumbled. This was so typical, that he went right to sleep. She didn't reflect on the fact that when they slept at his place she usually went to sleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Right now she was quite awake and wanted him to keep her company.  
  
That was another thing which was different about their relationship when she compared it to any other relationship she'd been in. Normally at the start of a relationship you couldn't keep your hands of each other, and when you actually managed to, you would sit and talk for hours. She always loved that bit, staying awake for hours just talking and talking, getting to know each other really well. With Robert it was hard to keep a conversation going for five minutes after they'd gone to bed, let alone for hours. And she didn't know him even half as well as she would like, his past kept being a mystery to her.  
  
"You awake?" she asked.  
  
He groaned slightly.  
  
"Yes. I won't be able to sleep unless you shut up."  
  
She lifted herself up on her arms and looked at him.  
  
"So how do you know that woman from today?"  
  
"Kristina?" he asked, without opening his eyes. "She was my Shirley."  
  
"Your Shirley?"  
  
"Yeah, you know, Shirley the nurse?"  
  
"I know who Shirley is" Elizabeth said, knowing very well that he knew that too, wanting him to get to the point.  
  
"She had Shirley's job."  
  
"And now she's a surgeon?"  
  
"Wow, nothing gets past you" he quipped, finally opening his eyes to look at her.  
  
"Well good for her" Elizabeth said, not really meaning it.  
  
"Like you mean that..."  
  
"I do!" Elizabeth said, sounding very offended.  
  
"Yeah, sure you do... You don't like the competition of another female surgeon."  
  
"What the hell do you know about it?"  
  
"Either that or you're jealous of her hairdo" Robert said. "I saw the look you gave her. If you'd had a scalpel in your hand I'd told her to run for her life."  
  
"Oh give me a break..." Elizabeth sighed and let her head fall down on his chest again. There was a pause. "So you worked with her?"  
  
"Yeah, at Karolinska, about half a decade ago... Look, can we talk about something more interesting, if we have to talk at all? You're no more interested in my past co-workers than you are in adopting Gretel."  
  
"Who knows, I might surprise you" Elizabeth smiled, happy that he wanted to change the subject. The less interested he was in talking about his old friend, the better. "So what do you want to talk about?"  
  
"What I would most like to do is have a conversation with the Sand Man" he said and closed his eyes again. "I've got an early shift tomorrow, Liz."  
  
"So it's back to the lions in the shower, then?" she sighed.  
  
"No, they're in the jungle."  
  
"Whatever... Do you want me to roll off you?"  
  
"That'd be nice. I've gotta go to the bathroom."  
  
"You see?" she said as she rolled off him and he got up. "It was good that I kept you awake. For **both** our sakes."  
  
"Thank you for having that kind of faith in me, Lizzie..." he mumbled and headed for the bathroom.  
  
Elizabeth rolled over on her side and decided that even though this day had mostly been a worthy part of this horrible week, at least it had ended well. But as usual she couldn't keep her mind from wondering. It didn't take her more than a minute or two to start to wonder if there was a not so positive reason why he didn't want to talk about that woman.  
  
"You're out of your mind" she mumbled to herself. "He said they were co-workers... nothing more." But then again, she was herself his co-worker, and that hadn't stopped him from sleeping with her. She groaned and hated herself for never being able to let anything go.  
  
Robert returned and climbed back into bed, yawning big. He knew he had to get up in about five hours, and he needed to sleep. Typical Lizzie to keep him up with irrelevant conversations. He would have to pay her back with some extra loud singing in the morning.  
  
"Robert..." he heard her say.  
  
"What?" he asked in a tone that was anything but friendly.  
  
"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it? That friend of yours, I mean?"  
  
"Damn it, Lizzie" he moaned and rolled away from her.  
  
Elizabeth kept in a sigh and tried to make herself comfortable. She didn't want to be around to see what would happen if he was kept awake by her twisting and turning. She had a feeling he wouldn't be very pleasant company in that situation. He seemed annoyed enough with her as it was. Once again she had been proven wrong, this day had ended just as bad as any other day this week. She wondered if she could trade lives with a bear and just hibernate through the rest of the week. Although bears probably didn't hibernate in October, so she would be forced to stick around in the world of the awake anyway.  
  
She closed her eyes and hoped for sleep to come, to at least end this day.  
~*~  
  
"How come the last hour always seems like the longest?" Elizabeth asked no one in general. She had been working for seven hours and was ready to go home. So far this day had been rather good but she kept expecting something bad to happen, probably at work. The sooner she got out of there the better.  
  
"I think quite the opposite," Lewis said, "I think it's the first hour that seems like the longest. That's the hour when you can't figure out why you were stupid enough to come here in the first place."  
  
"But the last hour is the one where you're constantly worrying that some new trauma will come in and stick you in surgery for three or four hours."  
  
"Never felt that way" Lewis smirked and grabbed a chart. "Here I go, I've got a carbuncle in curtain one."  
  
"Have fun..."  
  
"Corday!" Elizabeth heard a voice barking. She turned her head to see Stone coming up to her. "We've got a GSW coming in five minutes from now, get ready!"  
  
"Lovely..." she muttered, hoping it would be a single wound and not a very bad one. She really didn't want to get stuck in surgery for ages.  
  
"And find Dr. Kovac, just because he's leaving tomorrow doesn't mean he can take it easy! Go, go, go!"  
  
"Lydia, find Luka" Elizabeth said, having better things to do than to go search for Luka Kovac. She had to get ready for the incoming trauma.  
  
"Looks like you won't have a dull last hour!" she heard Lewis shout from the other end of the room, as if Elizabeth had complained about something like that. She had **wished** for a dull last hour.  
~*~  
  
"We have to get this man up to surgery, call the OR" Elizabeth concluded a little while later. The GSW had turned out to be multiple, and it looked as if they would have to remove the man's spleen. She would be there for another couple of hours at least. She couldn't ask them to find another surgeon since her shift wasn't over yet, which was just her typical luck.  
  
"Is he gonna make it?" a nervous relative who had somehow gotten into the trauma room asked.  
  
"If I have anything to say about it, then yes" Elizabeth said and turned to Abby. "Call Dr. Romano, tell him to meet me on the way!"  
  
"But he's--"  
  
"Call him!"  
  
Abby gave in and grabbed the phone just as an alarm went off.  
  
"Sats are dropping" Yosh said.  
  
"Damn it... Abby tell him to meet me **here**, and to get a move on!"  
  
Abby angrily made the call, knowing there was much better use of her right now than to call a doctor who wouldn't be of any help anyway. When Romano started yelling at her on the other end of the phone she decided that was enough.  
  
"Just get down here, Corday needs you!" she said and hung up on him.  
  
"Abby we need you!" Kovac yelled, and she was more than happy to get back to assisting the patient.  
  
They worked on the patient for ten minutes and were starting to feel like they had things under control when Romano arrived, angry over having to come down there and angry that Abby had hung up on him.  
  
"My shift ends in five, I am not assisting you on this one" he declared.  
  
"Robert, I need you to go back to my place and watch over Ella so that Chris can go home" Elizabeth said. "Looks like I'm going to be here for hours."  
  
"Fine" he said. "From surgeon to baby-sitter, what an excellent career move."  
  
"He's stabile!" Elizabeth declared, looking up from the patient for the first time in fifteen minutes. "Let's get him up to the OR **now**!"  
  
"Enjoy you're evening" Robert said and left the trauma room.  
~*~  
  
Elizabeth came home nearly five hours later, exhausted from the hours in surgery. Her patient had ended up dying on her, and once again she'd be forced to have that conversation with someone. What a waste, the man had been no more than twenty-five.  
  
It was eight o'clock in the evening, and she was starving. Ella was hopefully asleep, and Gretel was hopefully in the back yard. She quickly realised though that the dog was inside, she could hear Robert talking and playing with her.  
  
She walked into the living room where Robert was indeed engaged in what seemed like some form of wrestling with the dog, while Ella was leaned over her colouring book by the coffee table. Elizabeth sighed.  
  
"This your idea of baby-sitting?" she asked. Robert looked up.  
  
"Hey Lizzie."  
  
"Normally you keep an eye on the child, not just the dog..."  
  
"Ella's fine" Robert said. "Relax."  
  
"Ella should be in bed" Elizabeth said and lifted her daughter up. Ella protested.  
  
"I don't want to go to bed!"  
  
"It's way past your bedtime!"  
  
"I don't care!"  
  
Elizabeth suppressed a growl and carried the unwilling child toward the stairs.  
  
"Next time, please make sure she's in bed at six!" she snarled at Robert as she went up the stairs with Ella in her arms.  
  
Ella was incredibly unwilling to go to bed, and fought Elizabeth in everything from toothbrushing to getting the pyjamas on to lying down in the bed. Elizabeth was ready to scream by the time Ella finally settled in her bed and grumpily hugged her eagle plushie.  
  
"Ella you know you can't stay up this late" Elizabeth said with a sigh, knowing that it was really no use to try and have a discussion with a child.  
  
"Robert let me."  
  
"Well he shouldn't have, Ella. I'll make sure Chris stays long enough to put you to bed next time."  
  
"No."  
  
"Yes, Ella."  
  
"No. I like Robert."  
  
"Yeah, I know..." Elizabeth said. "But he can't baby-sit you if he doesn't get you into bed in time."  
  
"I wasn't tired. We had fun."  
  
"You did, did you?"  
  
"Yes." Ella paused for a minute. "Can't he be here in the days instead of Chris?"  
  
"Robert has to work, just like mummy" Elizabeth told her. "And you see, Chris, she's working when she's here with you, that's her job. Robert works at the hospital, like me. And like your daddy."  
  
"My daddy?" Ella said.  
  
Elizabeth frowned slightly. Ella had forgotten Mark almost completely. It made Elizabeth very sad, since she knew how much Mark had loved his daughter. Ella had lost a wonderful father, and she wouldn't even know it when she was older. She barely knew it now.  
  
She had tried not to think about it before, but now she couldn't help it. Whoever she dated from now on would have a great effect in Ella's life. She had seen so many children at work whose mothers went through several boyfriends a year, some of them treating the children very badly, and she was determined never to put Ella through that. She had to start making sure that Robert would make a good father for Ella, because if he didn't have any potential to be then she shouldn't waste her time with him or risk getting into a long term relationship with him. Ella came first, and even if she would hate breaking up with Robert she would do it, if he wouldn't make a good possible step father.  
  
"Ella what do you really think of Robert?" she asked, wondering what Ella thought about it. "Do you like him? Is he nice to you?"  
  
"Yes" Ella said. "He's funny. And he makes great soup."  
  
"Soup?"  
  
Elizabeth couldn't help but be shocked. Ella had always hated soup, and refused to eat any kind of it. Elizabeth had started giving up hope, thinking that the child would never learn to like, or even eat, soup.  
  
"He made you soup?"  
  
"Yes. With potatoes. It was good."  
  
"I thought you hated soup."  
  
"It was good."  
  
"Okay..." Elizabeth gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Goodnight, darling."  
  
"Goodnight."  
  
Elizabeth turned the night light on, and on her way out turned off the other lights. Gretel passed by her in the door and laid down by Ella's bed, keeping guard. Elizabeth hoped Ella wouldn't turn into a dog lover, she could live with cats, but dogs were too slobbery and dependent for her liking.  
  
She slowly made her way down the stairs, and about halfway down she felt the wonderful scent of something cooking on the stove. She couldn't help a big smile from spreading across her face. She wasn't angry anymore.  
  
She stepped into the kitchen where Robert was just pouring her some soup, and sat down to eat.  
  
"Thank you" she said. "I was starving."  
  
"I figured as much. Is the munchkin in bed?"  
  
"Yes, she's in bed, **finally**. Look, I'm sorry for being mad with you earlier."  
  
"Don't be" he said and gave her a sandwich to go with the soup. "It doesn't matter."  
  
"It does matter" she objected. "I was grumpy, and hungry, and..." She shrugged her shoulders. "I wasn't really mad at you."  
  
"Don't worry about it, Lizzie."  
  
Elizabeth tasted the soup and knew why Ella had liked it. It was delicious. Her smile got wider.  
  
"You got her to eat soup..."  
  
"She's not allowed to?" he asked with a raised eyebrow and sat down opposite her.  
  
"Nobody's ever gotten her to eat soup before..." Elizabeth smiled.  
  
He smiled back at her and reached for her sandwich, taking a bite before he handed it back. She was feeling much better than she had at anytime that week. She suddenly felt secure that if things got serious with her and Robert, there wouldn't be a problem with him and Ella.  
~*~  
  
~*~  
  
~*~  
  
Please leave a review! I would love some suggestions and comments! :-)!  


* * *


	4. Replacement

**Author's note**: Howdy doody! How's it going? This part is shorter than the others, but I haven't had much time, so... Thanks to all who have reviewed! Please continue to do so... ;-) English isn't my first language and Word insisted that donor wasn't a real word, that's why it ended up as donator... I thought that sounded strange though. Thanks for informing me, from now on I'll teach Word a thing or two... :-) But if you notice any incorrect words please mention it, since I'm always hoping to improve my language! Oh, and btw, before I end my chatter and get on with the fic :-), actually I didn't mean to imply that Romano is Icelantic in my last chapter... However if you fly to the States from northern Europe you pass by Iceland on the way. I'm gonna keep Romano American, although include some European stuff anyhow!  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own the characters or other _ER_ things...   
  
  
  
  
  
~*~   
  
  
  
"My patient's mother keeps taking the pills I prescribe for her daughter" Carted complained to Abby.  
  
"What are you going to do about it?" Abby asked, not paying much attention.  
  
"I have a plan."  
  
"Reassuring" Abby said, and headed toward the doctor's lounge. She was in a bad mood today, and Carter's problems didn't concern her much at the moment. What she needed was a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Why had she had to stop smoking? Sure, it would save her life, but at the time being she really needed nicotine.  
  
She entered the lounge and found Corday and Josh Hailey there. Hailey was giving Corday the cold shoulder to the best of his ability, but it was mostly in vain since Elizabeth didn't seem to notice. She was going through her locker in search of something.  
  
"Wow" Abby said. "You could cut the tension in here with a knife."  
  
Hailey took that as his cue to leave and with one last icy glare at Elizabeth left the room. Elizabeth sighed and finally found what she had been looking for. Abby turned to look at her, holding her cup of coffee in her hand.  
  
"What's up with him?" she asked.  
  
"Oh, Hailey is just having some trouble accepting that I'm not in love with him. He can't quite get over the fact that I'm seeing Romano. How are you holding up?"  
  
"I'm fine" Abby said, in her usual denial. "Why wouldn't I be?"  
  
"Well, it is Luka's last day. From tomorrow on he'll be in Croatia."  
  
"Yes I know that" Abby said, trying to sound as casual as possible.  
  
"And you're fine with that? You used to love him."  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
"Are you sure? I know when Peter left I--"  
  
"I'm fine, okay Elizabeth?" Abby said, trying hard to keep her casual act. "Luka and I broke up years ago. I'm fine."  
  
"Well if you say so..." Elizabeth said, looking sceptic.  
  
"It's going to be a bit empty here for a while, but that's how it always is when someone leaves!" Abby said, not wanting to sound too indifferent. "And then someone new comes and takes over, and things go back to normal."  
  
"Looks like they've already hired a new doctor" Elizabeth told her. "I ran into Robert upstairs about a half hour ago and he told me Stone had hired someone."  
  
"Already? Uh, good..."  
  
Elizabeth doubted the sincerity of that, but didn't say anything. She had to get back upstairs and start doing some paperwork, she had been avoiding it all week. She said goodbye to Abby and headed for the elevators.  
  
"Elizabeth!" Luka's voice stopped her just as she was about to step on to the elevator. "How did it go yesterday, with the gunshot wound?"  
  
"He died" Elizabeth sighed.  
  
"Oh..."  
  
Not knowing what else to say, Luka turned and walked back to admin, letting Elizabeth get on the elevator. He checked the board for anything interesting but everything seemed to be covered. It was a slow day so far.  
  
  
  
  
  
~*~   
  
  
  
An hour later Elizabeth was in desperate need of a cup of coffee, and took her retreat to the surgeons' lounge. She had been called down three times in the past hour to do consults, and she was beginning to wonder where all the other surgeons were. There had to be someone else who could go down and do a consult.  
  
She got her cup of coffee and sat down, taking a moment to relax. She loved being alone in the lounge, it was the only time during work when she could clear her head in absolute silence. If someone needed a consult down in the ER they would have to send someone else, she was not going to move out of this chair for a while.  
  
She looked up when her peace was disturbed by someone entering, and nearly choked on her coffee when she recognised Robert's friend from the day before, dressed in her perfectly neat lab coat and with her perfect hair still in perfect order. What on earth was that woman doing here?  
  
"Oh hello!" she said to Elizabeth, and smiled one of those annoying smiles. "You look familiar, did we meet yesterday?"  
  
"Briefly."  
  
"Right... Out by the desk, right?"  
  
"Right... May I ask, what are you doing in here, this is the surgeons' lounge."  
  
"Oh! I apologise..." She walked over and extended her hand to the somewhat baffled Elizabeth. "Kristina Lindgren."  
  
"Elizabeth Corday" Elizabeth said and shook her hand, not quite following.  
  
"I was just hired to take over after some other European who is leaving."  
  
Elizabeth's face showed exactly how shocked she was. Had Stone lost his mind completely? She had to be kidding!  
  
"Luka hasn't even left yet" she stuttered.  
  
"Well officially I don't start down in the ER until tomorrow" Kristina said and sat down in the chair next to Elizabeth's. "But I'm also filling in up here in the OR."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well Robert's arm isn't well, and he said you could use an extra surgeon so he offered me a job. It's only temporary, of course, but I'm still quite excited! Not about his arm of course, what a horrible thing that is! I feel so sorry for him!"  
  
Elizabeth had stopped listening after the bit about the job offer. This woman had to be kidding, or else Satan was wearing mittens and a winter coat down in hell. There was no way Robert would admit to not being as well in his arm as he'd like to be, and to offer someone his job because of it. This was all too much at one time.  
  
"Are you all right?" Kristina asked.  
  
"I'm fine" Elizabeth said, not being a bit more fine than Abby had been earlier when answering the same question.  
  
"You don't look fine, if you don't mind me saying so" Kristina said, with a concerned frown, eyeing Elizabeth who was staring into space with a shocked look in her face. "Is there something wrong?"  
  
"I, uh, I have to go..." Elizabeth said and got up, completely forgetting her cup of coffee which was only half finished. "I, uh, I'll see you later."  
  
She hurried out of the lounge and wondered if today was April Fools Day. But that day rarely came in October, so unless this was someone's idea of a joke then it must be true. But she couldn't believe that it was, it sounded too incredible. Not to mention that she didn't like the thought of having to work with this woman, who felt like competition.  
  
"Lizzie!" Robert's voice broke through her confused thoughts. "What's the matter with you, you look like someone just gave you a difficult math problem and stole your calculator."  
  
He always seemed to have a way with words, which usually either annoyed her or amused her, depending on the situation, but at the moment gave no reaction. He gave her a slightly concerned frown, annoyingly much like the one Kristina had given her minutes before, and stopped by his office door.  
  
"Come inside Lizzie, you look like you need to unwind. Haven't I told you not to drink too much coffee too early in the day?"  
  
She followed him into his office and slumped in one of the chairs, suddenly missing the coffee she'd left behind in the lounge. Robert looked at her, still frowning, and hung off his lab coat before taking a seat behind his desk. He peered at her and leaned a bit over his desk.  
  
"Ho, ho? Lizzie?"  
  
"What?" she asked, suddenly snapping back to reality.  
  
He looked at her with a mixture of a concerned frown and a smirk, and leaned back in his chair.  
  
"You okay?"  
  
"Yes I'm fine" she mumbled.  
  
"Good. For a moment there I was worried you'd migrated over to your own little Lizzie-world." The frown left his face and was replaced by a smile.  
  
"Robert, when you said you'd found someone to replace Dr. Kovac..." she began, but got unsure over how to finish. Luckily, or maybe unluckily, he finished for her.  
  
"Yeah, like I said, hired someone today."  
  
"How did you find someone so soon?"  
  
"That's the beauty of it, all I had to do was to pressure Stone into doing me a favour and voila!"  
  
"Voila?"  
  
"As French fries would put it."  
  
"Robert tell me you didn't talk Stone into hiring your friend from yesterday."  
  
"What, you have a problem with Stina?"  
  
"I thought her name was **Kri**stina."  
  
"Whatever. Yes, she's the lucky one. I think she's in the lounge, you should go say hello to your new colleague."  
  
"Will she be working in the OR as well?"  
  
"Yeah. We could use another pair of surgical hands, until mine are good as new again."  
  
"That long?" it slipped out of Elizabeth before she realised what she was saying. She didn't like the thought of having to put up with Kristina for god knows how long. Robert didn't seem to react on her comment, he was in a very good mood and apparently intended to stay that way.  
  
"She'll only be here temporarily" he said. "She didn't get that position at Mercy, we needed a new doctor, it was the perfect solution."  
  
"Only she's never worked in an American hospital before, has she? If she's been trained in whatever country she's from she's probably not used to the way we talk, if English is her second language then--"  
  
"She speaks English perfectly."  
  
"Do we really need another surgeon?" she asked, changing direction. She hoped she could awaken his ego a bit to make him look less positively on having some new doctor take over most of his job.  
  
"It can't hurt, can it?" Robert asked, his good mood seeming to fade somewhat. "You and I both know that as much as I want to, I can't perform surgery the way that I used to, or hardly at all."  
  
"You're making wonderful progress!"  
  
"Slow progress. I have full confidence that I'll be back in the OR standing on my own two... well, arms, within time. But until then, it certainly won't hurt to have another surgeon." He rose from his chair and went to open his door. "Kristina is an amazing woman, you'll like her. Now get out of here, I have boring paperwork to do and then places to go. I'll see you later."  
  
  
  
  
  
~*~   
  
  
  
Abby watched in the corner of her eye as Luka helped an old woman with a heart problem, not paying much attention to her own patient. She couldn't quite understand that this would be the last time she ever worked a shift with him. When she came to work tomorrow he would be on an airplane to Croatia, flying out of her life.  
  
Elizabeth had been right, it was really hard to know he was leaving for good because she had loved him once, and she still cared a lot about him. Over the past year she had often thought she despised him now, since she despised the way he had acted, but now she realised that she never had. She knew why he had acted the way he had, and even though she didn't approve of his reaction she could understand it.  
  
"I need my meds!" her patient angrily whined, turning her attention back to her job.  
  
"Just a minute, Mr. Arlington..." she said and in the corner of her eye noted that Luka was finished with his patient for now. She finished with hers and went back to admin.  
  
"Abby!" Luka said. "Big trauma coming in, go prep the trauma room."  
  
She turned and went to the trauma room while he went outside to wait for the patients to arrive. There were three of them, who had been hurt when a statue at a museum had fallen over them. His day was going from slow to stressy, but he didn't mind. He never felt more useful than in a trauma room, and he wanted to feel useful on his last day.  
  
The ambulances came, and soon everything was organised ER chaos. Luka, Lewis and Pratt were working in one trauma room while Carter, Gallant and Stone were in the other. Someone else was attending to the third victim, who had only broken an arm.  
  
"Page surgery, tell them we need them down here!" Carter said, trying to intubate his patient. It wasn't very easy since there was a lot of blood, but he was determined to get it done. The woman was badly injured and he didn't have very high hopes that she would make it, but the least he could do was try. Her daughter in the other trauma room was not as badly hurt. Abby came in to grab something and he decided to ask for an update.  
  
"Abby, how's your patient?"  
  
"Pressure's stabile" Abby responded. "She's awake."  
  
"Got it!" Carter declared, finally getting the tube in. "Bag her!"  
  
One of the nurses bagged the woman and started squeezing the bag. Abby went back to the other trauma room, where the girl seemed to be stabile for now, but she had internal bleedings and needed surgery. Plus it seemed as if her back was broken, and they were worried she'd end up paralysed.  
  
"Sweetheart, can you feel this?" Lewis asked the girl and gave her some painful stimuli in her toes.  
  
"No" the girl sobbed, near hysteria. "What's happening? Am I paralysed?"  
  
"We don't know for sure yet, sweetie, but we're going to do everything we can."  
  
"You don't need me in here" Pratt decided and headed over to the other OR where things were much more critical. Stone had his hands in the patient's chest, giving internal compression, and nobody looked very optimistic.  
  
"What's wrong with my mom?" the girl cried.  
  
"You're mother's being treated by some of the best doctors in the hospital" Luka tried to comfort her. "They're doing everything they can."  
  
The doors opened and Kristina stepped in, a bit unsure of whether or not she was in the right room.  
  
"Was it here you called for a surgical consult?" she asked.  
  
"Yes, are you the surgeon?" Lewis asked.  
  
"Yes" Kristina said and began to do a quick exam of the patient.  
  
"No reaction to painful stimuli below her waist" Lewis informed her.  
  
"I'm paralysed, aren't I?" the girl sobbed.  
  
"We don't know that yet" Kristina said. "I think you've broken your back, but we need to stop the bleeding first. Come on, let's get you up to the OR."  
  
"But what about my mom?" the girl cried.  
  
Kristina took a glance at the patient in the next room and didn't know what to say. The mother probably wouldn't make it, but she didn't want to upset the girl even more.  
  
"Your mother is getting better" she said and started rolling the girl's bed toward the elevators. "Let's worry about fixing you now."  
  
"Do you think they need any help in there?" Lewis asked Kovac, looking into the other trauma room.  
  
"I think they've got it."  
  
"Looks like she's dying."  
  
"There are four doctors in there already, too many cooks..."  
  
"Is that woman new?" Lewis asked, referring to Kristina, as they left the trauma room together. "I didn't recognise her."  
  
"Neither did I" Luka said.  
  
"I hope she's good. That poor girl..."  
  
  
  
  
  
~*~   
  
  
  
"Hey Abby!" Carter said, catching up with her on her way out of the trauma room.  
  
Their patient had died after an hour, her bleeding had been too severe, and Abby felt like this day couldn't get any worse. She just wanted to go home, have a drink and forget about everything else. Whatever John had to say, it could wait.  
  
"Abby!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Guess what, I think my plan might work!"  
  
"What plan?"  
  
"You know, that patient I told you about, whose mother keeps taking her pills?"  
  
"Right..."  
  
"Well I've given her only as many pills as the daughter needs a week, and told her to come back once a week to get more. That way she won't be able to take her daughter's meds."  
  
"Yeah, good for you" Abby said and walked outside, leaving a confused Carter behind.  
  
"Did I say something?" he asked Lewis who was standing nearby.  
  
"Not that I heard" Lewis replied. "Carter have you seen my asthma patient? He keeps wandering off! Actually Chen's patient, she stuck me with him earlier..."  
  
"No, no I haven't seen him..."  
  
Lewis sighed and continued her search. Out in the ambulance bay Abby rubbed her arms to keep them warm, wishing she had gotten her jacket on the way out. It was freezing, winter was in the air. She hated winter. She had always told herself that when she was an adult she would live someplace warm. Cold and windy had definitely not been on her list.  
  
The doors opened behind her and she heard Luka's voice behind her. She turned to look at him and wondered if his shift was over. She felt a knot in her stomach. Would this be goodbye? The last time she saw him?  
  
"Hey" she replied, not knowing what else to say.  
  
"My shift is over, I uh, wanted to find you before I left. Do you want to borrow my jacket, you look like you're freezing!"  
  
"No that's okay" she said, pretending like she always shivered like a maniac. "So you're leaving?"  
  
"Yeah..."  
  
She nodded and looked away, not knowing what to say. She had dreaded this confrontation for weeks, she hated saying goodbye. And things hadn't been very good at all between her and Luka for a long time, making this moment so much harder.  
  
"Abby, I know things haven't been the best..." he said, apparently thinking along the same lines as herself. "And I know it's mostly just my fault. But I just wanted to know that we're not parting as foes."  
  
"No! Of course not! Who needs foes, right?" she said, trying to sound cheerful, although knowing that he could see straight through her.  
  
"Right..." he said, stepping closer to her. "You will always have a special place in my heart, Abby. Hopefully you won't remember me as the jerk I've been lately, but maybe with a smile on your face."  
  
She didn't know what to say and looked away again. He pulled her into a hug and wrapped his coat around her, warming her shivering body. She rested her head against his familiar chest and tried to fight back the tears. She truly hated saying goodbye. She could feel it starting to rain, and when her face started getting wet from the raindrops she let her tears fall down her cheeks as well.  
  
"I'll miss you, Abby..." he whispered in her hair.  
  
Neither of them said anything else. It was as if they both understood each other, and that nothing else needed to be said now between them. From inside the ER, Carter watched them say goodbye and felt bad seeing Abby hurt. He saw their tender embrace but didn't mind, he knew she had loved Luka once and didn't deny her the right to still care about him and be sad that he was leaving.  
  
  
  
  
  
~*~   
  
  
  
Please leave a review! Sorry that this part wasn't very long! I hope the next part will be up soon, but I'm currently swamped, so I might not be able to write for a few weeks... :-)   
  
  
  
  
  


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